Pensioners left on A&E chairs
They waited for 23 hours at a packed hospital
‘It is a shameful indictment’ ‘It was freezing on that chair’
A PENSIONER has claimed she had to endure a 23-hour wait in A&E on a chair.
The 69-year-old, who says she was suffering from a serious infection, also says said another patient – aged 85 – had to endure the same wait she had on the same set of chairs.
Her story, which was aired on RTÉ Radio’s Liveline yesterday, is the latest to highlight the worsening overcrowding crisis within the emergency departments as patients are left on trolleys.
But for Liveline caller ‘Rose’, she didn’t even get the ‘luxury’ of a trolley.
Although the last time she had to be admitted to hospital she had to wait on a trolley, she said she envied those on one on Monday in Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, west Dublin.
‘I keep hearing about trolleys,’ she told Liveline. ‘The trolley is not the worst place to be, believe me. I was sitting on a hard chair for 23 hours, very sick.
‘I am 69 and there was a man sitting beside me for the same 23 hours and he was 85.
‘It was unbelievable. I was in the door. I wasn’t in the waiting room.
‘My name was down on a chart somewhere. I got called through but I didn’t even make a trolley – a chair!
‘I never saw a doctor for 19 hours. It was unbelievable really and truly. The people who are [on] the trolleys? I envy them.
‘I was just sick all over. I had a very bad infection. I was coughing and I was sick, throwing up into this kind of a cardboard bowl the whole time that I was there and there were lots of people around me the same way.
‘We weren’t handed a blanket when it got night-time – no pillow, nothing. It was freezing cold sitting there on that chair.’ She said medical staff who passed where she sat appeared embarrassed at the fact she was having to wait in a chair in the hospital.
The Mail asked Connolly Hospital for a comment but none was available last night.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has apologised to patients experiencing long delays in hospitals and expressed ‘regret and frustration’ that there has not been an improvement despite increased investment.
But Irish Medical Organisation president Dr Ann Hogan said: ‘Patients and doctors are experiencing frustration on a daily basis. It is time for action not regret.’
She added Mr Varadkar’s his ‘comments reflected a shocking ignorance of the health services and the impact of years of austerity, which was worrying given the Taoiseach is a former minister for health’.
And she said: ‘At every budget for the past five years we have warned that the supposed “increases” in the health budgets were mirages and they would not even keep pace with the underlying cost increases in the services.
‘We thought that successive ministers were trying to fool the public... now it seems that they fooled themselves as well. It is a shameful indictment of the political system that the Taoiseach promises the system will stabilise soon.’
Although the number of people waiting to be admitted was down to 483 yesterday morning on Wednesday’s 677, there were still nine children waiting on trolleys as of 2pm yesterday.
Although this is a reduction of the 12 waiting on Thursday, it is a reminder the previously rare phenomenon of children waiting on trolleys is becoming more commonplace. And of the nine waiting yesterday, two of them had to endure an overnight wait on a trolley.
A Health Service Executive spokesperson said: ‘The HSE is clearly concerned at the impact of the current situation.
‘We are liaising with the hospitals and are aware that they are managing the situation.
The HSE is continuing to engage directly with hospitals across the country today to provide support in addressing ongoing emergency department pressures.’
The large numbers of patients come at a time when cases of the virulent ‘Aussie flu’ have begun to emerge, and over the last weekend the HSE confirmed the first influenza-related deaths of the season had occurred.
Medics fear this year’s flu season could be the worst the country has experienced.