FLU IDIOTS
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A MAN of 94 has been forced to wait more than 10 hours on a hospital trolley for the second January in a row due to the overcrowding crisis.
John Corbett was admitted to University Hospital Galway with double pneumonia.
And it has emerged he spent 13 hours on a trolley at the same hospital last year.
His daughter Mary Corbett-joyce slammed conditions there as a five-fold increase in the number of children being treated for the flu virus and its symptoms was revealed.
She said: “The doctors and the nurses are working in inhumane conditions.
“Isn’t this just terrible? I’m looking
at people like me out in Connemara that have to travel 50 miles in and out.
“Is this the facilities we have? Nobody should be asked, no nurses or patients should endure what’s happening in our health services today.”
Mr Corbett was admitted to the hospital on Friday, December 29, and is finally in a ward bed.
His daughter told RTE News she was shocked and horrified at the conditions.
Ms Corbett-joyce said the hospital was completely understaffed and it was heart-wrenching to see the work pressure facing nurses.
She added: “There are insufficient nurses to deal with very ill patients like my father.”
She said he was improving but it would take time, given his age.
Fianna Fail Health spokesman Billy Kelleher said: “What we need is for hospital managers across the country, along with the HSE and the Minister for Health to identify where there’s beds available and to open them up immediately.
“The other key issue is, wherever they can, move people from the acute hospital settings either to private hospitals, private nursing homes or stepdown facilities.”
Last night, 20 people were still waiting for beds in Galway, seven for more than 24 hours, with one spending more than 65 hours on a trolley in the emergency department.
Last year it was revealed that there has been a
500% increase in the numbers of patients waiting on trolleys at the emergency department in UHG and Portiuncula in Ballinasloe in the past decade. The Saolta University Health Care Group – a HSE hospital organisation containing UHG – said it was making every effort to minimise the length of time patients wait to be admitted, particularly elderly patients. It has apologised for any distress or inconvenience caused to patients, or their families, who wait extended periods for admission.
No nurses or patients should endure what is happening
MARY CORBETT-JOYCE CO GALWAY YESTERDAY