A top doctor based in Ireland has said that it is likely patients have already died as a result of the chaos being experienced across hospitals nationwide in recent weeks.
Dr. Matthew Sadlier, Chairman of the Consultant Committee of the IMO, issued a statement about the ongoing crisis conditions in hospitals and is pleading with the government to take action before things escalate further.
He confirmed: “There is a very real likelihood that some patients will have died as a result of avoidable delays in the system in recent weeks.
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“There is an even stronger likelihood that we will see further increased deaths and delayed diagnosis because some people who should present at our Emergency Departments in the coming weeks will not now do so because of fears of what they have recently seen”.
Dr. Sadlier went on to say there is a strong likelihood that the younger medics who have worked in what has been described as ‘war-zone-like conditions’ will “quit the Irish health services and go abroad to work”, which will in turn have knock-on effects for patient care in Ireland.
Dr. Sadlier then dispelled the concept that these issues are being caused by a triple surge of infections - such as Flu, Covid and other respiratory illnesses - nor is it due to limited Emergency Departments or Trolley numbers – he said, “these are simply a reflection of a wider problem with the health services”.
His statement went on to explain: “The real issue is that successive governments have accepted as “good enough” a health service which was - and is - demonstrably unfit-for-purpose; where almost a million patients are stuck on waiting lists, where vacancies exist for nearly 1,000 consultant posts (which fail even to attract applicants), where chaotic scenes in Emergency Departments and hundreds of patients on trolleys are now routine and where staff face unprecedented levels of burnout, stress and low morale as they once again listen to politicians making excuses for our woefully inadequate health services”.
He said: “Such a health service is always vulnerable to any uptick in demand caused by external factors, so it is hardly surprising that our system, which struggles on a day-to-day basis, is thrown into extraordinary levels of dysfunction as soon as challenges arise”.
Speaking about the issues which have been getting consistently worse since Christmas, the IMO spokesman said: “The only thing that has prevented the health services from tipping over into complete chaos was the herculean efforts of our doctors and other health care professionals.
“We saw that again last weekend with the increased number of discharges from hospitals which in turn freed up beds to allow new patients to be admitted. Some have argued that experience confirms the benefit of having consultants working at weekends.
“However, consultants always work weekends. Last weekend, the Government made funding available to source step-down facilities for discharged patients and whole teams of people were available in the hospital network to facilitate the discharge of those patients.
“The ongoing myth of consultants not being available is just that – a myth. Unfortunately, with staffing numbers as constrained as they currently are, the type of once-off-response we saw last weekend cannot be relied upon on an ongoing basis”.
Dr. Sadlier said that the IMO is now asking the Government “to make it clear that the recent exceptional measures will be financed independently of the normal budgetary process for healthcare”.
He explained that: “The health service is already demanding too much from front-line staff; it has a long history of forcing NCHDs to work illegal and unsafe hours – often 80 hours or more a week; it can’t fill almost 1,000 consultant posts because it refuses to compete in the worldwide market for such sought-after talent and it will soon be facing the reality of a scarcity of GPs because it has treated GPs as workhorses on which endlessly increasing demands can be foisted rather than valuable resources that need support and investment”.
Concluding his statement, he reiterated that: “The sad reality is that without radical action, the only certainty is that the chaos of January 2023 will recur and perhaps sooner than anyone would expect”.
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