LATEST: Aoife Johnston wasn't given antibiotics for more than 15 hours

A MICROBIOLOGIST noted the “apparent delay in administering antibiotics” to Aoife Johnston when she was in University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

Dr Patrick Stapleton said when treating meningitis that a “delay of more than two hours is associated with a two-fold increase in mortality.”

He told the Limerick Coroner’s Court at Kilmallock Courthouse that he “had identified a delay from the first presentation to ED to the first dose of antibiotics.”

Dr Stapleton said the meningitis B that Aoife had, was susceptible to all antibiotics.

He pointed out that immunisation against this type of meningitis was rolled out in 2016, but only to babies under the age of one.

Dr Stapleton acknowledged that the outcome “highly likely” would have been different or “optimal” if antibiotics had been given correctly.

Antibiotics were administered to Aoife at 7.15am on the morning of December 18, 2022 – at which point she had been in the hospital for 15 hours and 15 minutes.

Dr Stapleton thanked the family for thinking of others, as Aoife's organs were donated.