An asthmatic pensioner with spinal problems has claimed she waited three days on a hard chair in hospital.
Geraldine Bollard, 78, spoke outside Beaumont Hospital and said: “No one cares, I was waiting three days on a metal chair. I’m a chronic asthmatic with lung trouble, I’m a diabetic, and I’ve spine trouble. I was very stiff and I had to end up getting steroids through a drip.”
Geraldine was speaking to Newstalk Radio reporter Henry McKean for the station’s show The Hard Shoulder. She called for greater services for the elderly and said: “My message to the Government is that they have to start looking after the old people who are sick and vulnerable.
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“There’s nothing in there for old people. I sat in there all night without a cup of tea. I think it is a disgrace. The nurses are under complete stress.”
Her husband added: “Three days she was waiting on a hard chair. They should all be sacked in the Government, every one of them. They should all be turned out of Government. The poor nurses are run off their feet. No one cares. I blame the politicians.”
It came as levels of soaring hospital overcrowding remained amongst the highest ever recorded yesterday – prompting warnings that the State needs 5,000 more beds. A leading nurses’ union branded it “an out and out crisis” and claimed that it “warrants an extraordinary response from Government and the HSE” to stop hospital staff quitting.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar revealed the scale of the trolley crisis was a priority at the first Cabinet meeting of the year. But Health Minister Stephen Donnelly repeated his warning that the HSE fears the overcrowding will get worse, despite the record INMO figure of 931 on Tuesday and 838 yesterday.
The Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association warned that numbers could soon go above 1,000 and accused health chiefs of having “no credible plan” to tackle the crisis. Minister Donnelly revealed it was “entirely possible” that the situation could worsen and said: “That [was] the view of the HSE when I met them. We have to hire more people.”
The latest Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation trolley figures recorded a slight fall to 838 yesterday from a record 931 on Tuesday, a drop of 9.9%. But senior medical consultants warned that the health service needs 5,000 more hospital beds to cope with the ongoing crisis in A&Es.
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Before Tuesday, the highest ever trolley total was 760 – recorded on December 19 – but the tally yesterday exceeded 800 for the second time in two days. The HSE, which collects its own figures, claimed there were 601 patients waiting for a bed yesterday, some 237 lower than the INMO count.
The HSE’s 601 compares to 273 on the same day last year, which is a 120.15% increase, year-on-year. Of yesterday’s 601 figure, the HSE revealed that 347 of the patients were waiting over nine hours for a bed.
Mr Varadkar said it was unacceptable for sick patients to be left for hours or overnight on trolleys. He added: “It’s not acceptable [that people are being left on trolleys]. But the Government and HSE are doing everything possible to improve the situation.
“A lot of patients [are] not getting the dignity they deserve. We are seeing an unprecedented wave of illness at the moment affecting our health system.”
GPs and hospital consultants revealed hundreds of patients are being treated on chairs at nurses’ stations, warned that it is not safe, and claimed that thousands more beds are needed in hospitals and 100% more nurses are needed in GP clinics. Beaumont Hospital’s emergency medicine consultant, Dr Peadar Gilligan, said: “Some 5,000 additional beds need to be developed and there needs to be a plan on how that is achieved in a timely manner to avoid this reality for patients and staff into the future.”
He also said patients are receiving treatment “not in the manner that any of us would wish for it to be delivered”. He warned: “Anywhere that’s working above 100% capacity is not safe and, in Ireland now, it’s not as safe as it should be.”
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Meanwhile, a 30-year-old man with Crohn’s disease said he witnessed “bedlam” and “absolute chaos” at UHL during four days on a trolley in it’s A&E over Christmas. Liam O’Brien, from Miltown Malbay in Co Clare, arrived by ambulance on December 26, was put in a wheelchair and left at the emergency department doors.
He said he was dehydrated, in pain, and asked for a trolley as it was more comfortable lying down. But he did not see a medic “for hours” and did not see a doctor until later, although his pain “continued and my temperature went through the roof”.
He revealed: “I spent the night at the counter of the nurses’ station.” He was moved into a corridor the next morning and stayed there for another three days.
He told RTE’s Today with Claire Byrne: “Nurses were getting abuse left, right and centre and some are literally reduced to tears.” UL Hospitals Group, which manages UHL, apologised to him and to “any person who has been experiencing long waits for hospital beds in University Hospital Limerick or to see a doctor in the emergency department”.
The group recorded 121 patients at UHL’s emergency department yesterday, with 78 admitted and waiting for a bed. A spokesperson said: “This is not the level of care we wish to provide and we apologise to anyone who has been impacted at this time.
“We continue to advise patients who are seriously ill or injured, or worried that their life is in danger, to attend the ED where they will be treated as a priority.” A spokesperson for the INMO said: “No hospital is unaffected by overcrowding with patients on trolleys or chairs in emergency departments or elsewhere in each of our hospitals.”
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Its general secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha added: “This is an out and out crisis. A crisis warrants an extraordinary response from the Government and the HSE.” She added that frontline nurses’ warnings of “chaotic conditions” must not “continue to fall on deaf ears” and said patients are being treated in the most “undignified conditions”. Ms Ni Sheaghdha warned hospital staff will quit and said this is “exactly what this health service does not need”.
The Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association said: “We are consistently left to firefight without the necessary resources. The moral injury caused is almost irreversible at this stage. Hospitals could see 1,000 admitted patients being treated on trolleys on a single day in the weeks ahead. To move away from this constant wheel of crises, the Government must put in place the capacity expansion that is needed.”
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