DYING 92-YEAR-OLD MAN ‘LEFT FOR 24 HOURS ON TROLLEY’
Tragic pensioner’s family shocked by treatment of elderly father
A DYING 92-year-old man was left waiting 24 hours on a hospital trolley, according to his ‘shocked and appalled’ family.
The frail pensioner was eventually admitted to a ward in Letterkenny University Hospital, Co. Donegal, but he has since died.
Management at LUH has apologised to the family of the tragic pensioner.
The HSE is investigating the circumstances around how the elderly man was initially discharged from the hospital on January 10 after a short stay, only to return five days later on January 15 when he had to wait a full day before being readmitted.
A family friend, who asked not to be named, told the Irish Daily Mail last night: ‘The fact that their dying father
spent one of the last five days he had left alive on a trolley is scandalous.’
The pensioner had been rushed by ambulance to the hospital on January 5. He had been suffering from gastro-intestinal problems, a respiratory tract infection and a general deterioration in his overall health. His family say that before he was admitted to a ward, the pensioner, from Inishowen, Co. Donegal, had to wait more than 16 hours on a trolley.
He was eventually admitted, treated and then discharged on January 10 – before, the family claim, he’d had a chance to fully recover. The man’s family believe he should not have been discharged as he had not recovered.
In addition, they blame overcrowding for the delays in him being admitted before he died and claim that this contributed to a deterioration in his health.
The elderly man ended up being rushed back to LUH a second time after his condition worsened while at home. Despite being seriously ill, the family say he was forced to endure a 24-hour wait on a trolley in A&E while he awaited readmission to a bed on a ward.
His family say that it was while he was on a trolley in a cubicle that he was diagnosed with pneumonia.
Despite Saolta University Health Care Group’s description of LUH as a ‘patient-centred, qualitydriven’ hospital, it is routinely one of the most overcrowded in the country.
At the time the pensioner arrived back at LUH by ambulance on the afternoon of January 15, there had been a total of 24 patients waiting on trolleys or in wards for a bed earlier in the day. The following day, that number had risen even higher – to 36, one of the highest figures in the country that day.
LUH general manager Seán Murphy has apologised to the family and promised an explanation. A copy of his January 26 apology, seen by the Mail, states: ‘I can only imagine how distressing your dad’s initial days in the hospital were for him, your mother and your family. I apologise most sincerely that we were unable to provide an appropriate care environment earlier.’
And he told the family in the letter that he is to review the circumstances surrounding the pensioner’s initial discharge from hospital on January 10. He said he is also to review ‘the delay in us being able to admit him to an inpatient ward on January 15, 2018’.
And before promising to respond ‘with specific explanations regarding the care of your father received’, he again offered his ‘sincerest condolences’.
Health Minister Simon Harris’s office has been kept informed about the investigation.
But his staff say the family’s correspondence to the minister about their father had been referred to the HSE National Advocacy Unit.
It was promised that from there, the matter would be ‘forwarded to the appropriate local health area/ hospital for investigation’.
LUH’s customer services manager, Noleen O’Donnell, has subsequently confirmed the family will receive answers by March 9.
A spokesperson for the Saolta Group, which includes LUH, told the Mail: ‘Saolta University Health Care Group cannot comment on the specifics of any individual case due to its obligation to maintain patient confidentiality at all times. Management in Letterkenny University Hospital are in direct contact with the family concerned and have offered their sympathies to them on their loss.
‘The hospital will continue to deal directly with the family in relation to their concerns.’
The pensioner, who died on January 20, is survived by his elderly widow, children and siblings.
They are all said by friends to be ‘very upset and distressed’ by the way he was treated by the health service in the run-up to his death.
Last night a family friend asked: ‘What kind of a health service do we have now, despite all the rhetoric, that allows pensioners as old as 92 to spend so long on a trolley? The family also want to know why... their father, was medically discharged from hospital despite being in the very early stages of recovery.’
The family friend added: ‘His family feel that the bed shortages at LUH, the trolley crisis and severe pressure on scarce hospital beds all contributed to their father’s early discharge from hospital and his subsequent deterioration, which led to his eventual death when readmitted to LUH.
‘They are shocked and appalled that what happened to their father has become such an everyday occurrence for so many patients in the Irish health service.’
Last week, the Mail revealed how more than 11,000 patients over the age of 75 were left lying on trolleys for more than 24 hours last year.
The figures were described as ‘a national scandal’ by frontline doctors. Dr Jim Gray, emergency medicine consultant in Dublin’s Tallaght Hospital, even went so far as to label the trolley crisis ‘State institutional abuse’. Comment – Page 12 neil.michael@dailymail.ie
‘Very upset and distressed’