A Dublin councillor has hit out after her sick two-year-old daughter had to sleep on a cold metal bench in a childrens' hospital for 17 hours.
Fianna Fail Councillor Racheal Batten's young daughter became very unwell on Monday with a high fever, and after her GP and VHI wouldn't see her daughter she had no choice but to bring her to the A&E department of Temple Street Children's Hospital. Taking to social media, Cllr Batten shared shocking photos of herself and her child sleeping on the metal bench instead of a bed.
Speaking to Dublin Live, Cllr Batten said: "I rang the doctor and they said to go to A&E, I rang VHI and they said go to A&E as well so we got there at 5pm yesterday. We were there three hours being seen. She was really unwell, they decided to keep her in because she had a raised heart rate.
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"I think there were six other parents admitted inside the A&E in Temple Street on these steel chairs. That's fine if you're staying for an hour or two, my daughter wasn't the sickest, but I was really annoyed because how do they expect small kids and babies to sleep on a metal chair?
"What really annoyed me then was a doctor came to assess her and brought us into another ward and he said 'oh I'll have to bring you out of here because there's no nurses to attend this ward'. That ward was completely empty, six or seven beds in it."
Cllr Batten said that it was "very, very hard" to explain to her two-year-old why she couldn't sleep in a bed. "Logistically it doesn't make sense how they're happy to have that situation. I have to say, the doctors and nurses were great that's just a management issue as far as I'm concerned," said Cllr Batten.
Cllr Batten described how there was a "plenty of nursing staff" around taking temperatures in the hospital, but said that there is "no rationale" for how it is being run. "The massive frustrating thing is if you're a sick adult you can suck it up for a short period of time, but when you're a small baby it's very hard to understand what's going on. And knowing there was a fully empty ward got me so mad, I said it to the doctors twice," she added.
But she was told that this was a "separate area" with different rosters. Cllr Batten said that if her GP had proper facilities like a primary care centre to do chest x-rays that there would have been no need to go to an acute hospital but that there was no other option.
Cllr Batten said: "In this day and age, I don't understand how an acute hospital that does brain surgery on children is the same place you're bringing a child that's sick with a chest infection and a fever. That doesn't make sense to me, yet VHI and my GP wouldn't see her, both sent to A&E.
"To me this isn't about the healthcare system being overrun, to me it's just bad management," she added. Cllr Batten added that for other children getting drips and assessed there was "no privacy".
She and her daughter finally were discharged this morning from hospital after their 17-hour ordeal. Cllr Batten has also claimed that the use of metal chairs for patients in the hospital overnight in the hospital was not a once off, and that there are "placement-holders" at these chairs and that they are considered permanent bays.
Cllr Batten added: "It's just not acceptable. We spent 17 hours in a chair. To have that situation going on in a children's hospital is just not right."
A second mother who didn't wish to be named, told Dublin Live that she and her baby son experienced a "nightmare" over having to sleep in a metal chair instead of the bed. She said: "My little fella was very sick with a bug, we were admitted into the A&E and had to sleep in the chair all night.
"It was an absolute nightmare. More needs to be done stop this from happening to other small kids."
A spokeswoman for Temple Street Hospital told Dublin Live: "CHI at Temple St have no statement on this topic. We apologise for any child waiting."
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