Western Trust apologises after popular priest took his own life

THE Western Trust has apologised after a Derry priest who spent most of the 1980s as a curate in Strabane took his own life in a hospital garden while in the health organisation’s care more than two years ago.

Fr Paddy O’Kane, originally from Culdaff in Co Donegal, had been a curate at St Mary’s of Melmount from 1982 until 1990. He later served as parish priest of the Holy Family Parish in the Ballymagroarty area of Derry.

The priest was found dead in the garden of a hospital at Gransha Park in Derry on March 28, 2022.

He was being treated for depression at the hospital at the time of his death.

At an inquest into his death on Wednesday, the Western Trust’s assistant director for older people John McGinley said the garden area had not been included in a health and safety assessment.

Mr McGinley described this as ‘a serious and grave error’.

He told the court in Belfast there had been lessons learnt from the tragedy and that he was ‘very sorry for our failings’.

An action plan set in motion after this incident means that, now, no-one is in the garden unsupervised.