Record level of overcrowding in hospitals as f lu cases soar
HOSPITAL overcrowding levels reached new highs yesterday as more patients languished on trolleys and chairs in emergency departments than ever before.
A total of 656 people were recorded lying on trolleys, chairs or in corridors of hospitals waiting for a bed in a ward – and the figures were described as ‘institutional State abuse’ by one consultant.
Alarmingly, HSE chiefs have warned the situation will get worse when peak winter flu season arrives in the coming weeks. The daily headcount has soared past record levels, which came this time last year, and it is only the fourth time the trolley watch numbers have exceeded the 600 mark.
The worst hospitals were St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, with 57 patients waiting; University Hospital Limerick with 55; South Tipperary General Hospital with 45; and Cork University Hospital with 38.
Dr Jim Gray, emergency department consultant in Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, told the Irish Daily Mail the situation amounts to ‘institutional State abuse’, saying: ‘It’s insti- tutional because the institutions are the various hospitals around the State. It’s the State because it’s been overseen by the State and the Government. And it is abuse because it’s patients who are languishing for hours on end on trolleys with no dignity, no privacy, no confidentiality.’
A Department of Health bed capacity review – which is due to be published in the coming weeks, and will determine the number of additional acute hospital beds required by the HSE – is ‘long overdue’ and should have been published before flu season, Dr Gray insisted.
Damien McCallion, the HSE national director with responsibility for the winter initiative, yesterday warned the situation will get worse with peak winter flu season still weeks away.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News At One, he said additional ‘surge beds’ will be opened to address the high volume of patients on trolleys.
And in a statement yesterday, HSE deputy director-general John Connaghan said: ‘I would like to reassure the public that everything that can be done is being done to alleviate the pressures and provide access to ED services and acute beds as swiftly as is possible.’
But Phil Ní Sheaghdha of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, raised concerns about her members working in overcrowded conditions.
She said that ‘we’re not confident that our hospitals are prepared’ for an outbreak of flu – while Dr Tom Ryan, president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, said the withdrawal of 1,400 acute hospital beds was one of the key factors for overcrowding.
It comes at a time when cases of the virulent ‘Aussie flu’ have begun to emerge, and over the weekend the HSE confirmed the first influenzarelated deaths of the season had occurred. Dr Fergal Hickey, an emergency consultant at Sligo University Hospital, expects this flu season will be the worst Ireland has ever experienced.
He said: ‘The Australian situation was that it was significantly worse than anything they’ve seen in recent years and we expect that... Ireland will have the same problems.’
Minister for Health Simon Harris was strongly criticised by Opposition politicians over the growing trolley crisis.
Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher said the winter initiative developed by the HSE and the Department of Health, which aimed to address the additional pressures on the health service at this time of the year, had failed ‘miserably’. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin TD Louise O’Reilly said that ‘we need action to deal with the trolley crisis, not faux surprise that people get the flu during winter’.
In a statement, Mr Harris said: ‘I want [HSE staff] and our patients to know that no effort or resource is being spared to improve this situation. We are entering a difficult few weeks and our health services are experiencing extra pressure because of the flu season.
‘Traditionally these weeks are always the busiest, and when you couple that with the current strain of flu and our growing and ageing population, these are very busy times for our hospitals.’
‘Institutional State abuse’ ‘No effort is being spared’