I spent f ive days on a hospital trolley, it was horrendous
Seriously ill patient had no privacy or washroom
A WOMAN with an inoperable brain tumour had to wait five days on a trolley in what was last night declared a ‘barbaric’ new low for the health service.
Debbie Egan’s GP sent her to her local emergency department last Thursday morning after she experienced what appeared to be early signs of a potential heart attack.
These included severe painful spasms from her chest down along the length of her left arm.
Yet she spent 124 hours on a trolley up against various corridor walls at University Hospital Kerry’s overcrowded and understaffed emergency department.
Finally, at 3.45pm on Tuesday, less than an hour after the Irish Daily Mail contacted the hospital’s Dublin-based private public relations firm, Ms Egan was told she would get a bed. At 6pm that evening, she was moved to a bed in a mixed ward.
Until that time Ms Egan says she endured ‘zero’ privacy and the only time she could wash properly was when she was allowed home for two hours on Saturday afternoon to shower.
The only time the 54-year-old from Ballybunion, Co. Kerry, slept between Thursday and Tuesday was when she begged to be let into a darkened room.
She was allowed to sleep for six hours in the room which is normally reserved for relatives of crash victims.
Ms Egan, who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour three years ago, told the Irish Daily Mail last night: ‘It was horrendous. I never believed anybody would have to wait that long for a bed.
‘You had other trolleys banging past your own, you had doctors and nurses rushing past. It was mayhem and you were right in the middle of it. Even if you started nodding off, someone would bash into your trolley. It was horrendous and it was non-stop.’
Of the emergency department staff she said: ‘There definitely weren’t enough of them.
‘Those that were there were desperately trying to do their best and were run ragged.
‘One member of staff broke down in tears in front of me one night and told me they just couldn’t cope any more.’
A spokesman for the South/ South West Hospital Group said UHK’s Emergency Department and hospital was very busy over the weekend.
The hospital admitted a lot of
Slept for six out of 124 hours
seriously ill patients recently, ‘many of whom remain in the ED and are awaiting a bed’.
The spokesman added: ‘The hospital executive and clinical teams are monitoring the situation very closely and every effort is being made to increase capacity for inpatient admissions.’
Regarding the staff situation, the spokesman said the hospital group is ‘working with the HSE National Recruitment Service and is endeavouring to actively recruit qualified staff from all available avenues to ensure that staffing levels are safe’.
Sinn Féin Councillor Damien Quigg raised Ms Egan’s case with hospital management on Sunday as well as with The Kerryman newspaper. He told the Mail last night: ‘As a member of the Southern Regional Health Forum, I will be raising this again with management and looking for a full explanation. It is just unacceptable and what is happening has gone beyind a crisis.
‘Ministers are very quick to open places and cut ribbons, but what is happening to the Debbie Egans of this world is very real.’
Fianna Fáil’s new health spokesman Stephen Donnelly said: ‘I am appalled a woman diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour has to spend over five days on a hospital trolley.
‘It is absolutely shameless that waiting on trolleys like this has become the norm across the country. It is barbaric that Ms Egan does not have any access to washing facilities or to any privacy.’
Danny Healy-Rae TD described Ms Egan’s case as a ‘new low’ for the health service saying it was ‘nothing short of outrageous’.
‘It is a new low for the health service,’ he told the Mail. ‘Health Minister Simon Harris must explain how it is possible in this day and age for someone to have to wait this length of time.’
THE ordeal endured by brain tumour patient Debbie Egan, who spent five days on a trolley at Kerry University Hospital, is another sad indictment of our health service. We don’t need reminding that there is absolutely nothing to be gained from the protracted delay she experienced.
Studies show that patient health deteriorates in line with the length of time spent on trolleys, with sleeplessness and stress combining to aggravate existing medical symptoms. Staff morale can also be affected by overcrowding, which in turn piles even more pressure on the system.
This case, however, highlights the chaos caused by the service’s one-size-fits-all response to most sudden health problems. In countries where there is a functioning health service, Debbie would have attended a community care centre – what we call a primary care centre – rather than a hospital’s emergency department.
She would be examined on arrival and a full battery of diagnostic tests carried out to establish if she was in need of surgery or sophisticated medical intervention. If so, she would be transferred to a large teaching hospital or centre of excellence, perhaps some distance away.
If her symptoms did not warrant such measures, she would be monitored in a stress-free environment and perhaps prescribed medication, therapy or further screening. But building a health service that distinguishes between different styles of emergencies – between life and death situations created by road accidents on one hand, and alarming changes in symptoms caused by chronic medical conditions on the other – calls for investment and political courage. And possibly some community sacrifice. For under a new tiered service, not every county will have its own general hospital, and that may cause unrest.
Sadly, until our politicians have the guts to tackle local interest and the vision to develop a new way of delivering healthcare, then more and more people will suffer in the same way as Debbie Egan.