{"id":381872,"date":"2026-04-04T16:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/381872\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T16:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:12:07","slug":"james-johnston-father-of-teenager-aoife-johnston-dies-following-cancer-diagnosis-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/381872\/","title":{"rendered":"James Johnston, father of teenager Aoife Johnston, dies following cancer diagnosis \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The father of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/aoife-johnston\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/aoife-johnston\/\">Aoife Johnston<\/a>, a 16-year-old schoolgirl who died of meningitis in 2022 after being left without antibiotics for over 13 hours at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/university-hospital-limerick\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/university-hospital-limerick\/\">University Hospital Limerick<\/a> (UHL), has died. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2025\/02\/08\/shes-missed-out-on-so-much-family-of-aoife-johnston-who-died-in-limerick-hospital-determined-to-keep-her-memory-alive\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2025\/02\/08\/shes-missed-out-on-so-much-family-of-aoife-johnston-who-died-in-limerick-hospital-determined-to-keep-her-memory-alive\/\">James Johnston was diagnosed<\/a> with stage four kidney cancer in the summer of 2024. While dealing with his illness, he continued to fight for justice for his daughter, whose death attracted significant public attention, particularly in relation to the conditions in the midwest hospital. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a post on social media, the Mid West Hospital Campaign said it was \u201cThinking of Carol, Meagan, Kate Johnston and their family on the sad loss of their Dad James. Reunited with his beloved daughter Aoife.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Last year, the family said the trauma of their \u201cfight for justice\u201d had \u201ctaken a toll\u201d on his physical health. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At the time, he was being treated in the hospital in which Aoife had died. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A 2024 report by the former chief justice Frank Clarke found that UHL\u2019s emergency department was \u201csignificantly understaffed\u201d and had an \u201cinadequate\u201d and \u201cad hoc\u201d system to escalate concerns about patients\u2019 conditions deteriorating at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"> Aoife Johnston\u2019s death, he said, was \u201calmost certainly avoidable\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/health\/2025\/02\/08\/shes-missed-out-on-so-much-family-of-aoife-johnston-who-died-in-limerick-hospital-determined-to-keep-her-memory-alive\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018She\u2019s missed out on so much\u2019: Family of Aoife Johnston, who died in Limerick hospital, determined to keep her memory aliveOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The father of Aoife Johnston, a 16-year-old schoolgirl who died of meningitis in 2022 after being left without&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,17229],"class_list":["post-381872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-university-hospital-limerick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}