‘My lung had collapsed – but I had to spend three days on a trolley,’ says Noeleen (64)

A 64-YEAR-OLD woman has said she spent three days on a trolley on a day ward after she was first sent to hospital by her GP.

Noeleen, who did not wish to give her last name, lives on her own in Ballyfermot, Co Dublin, and suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which worsened over Christmas and left her with a partly collapsed lung last week.

She told the Irish Independent that she arrived in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, at roughly 1pm last Tuesday and was seen by the triage nurse before 1.30pm.

However, she said she was then left waiting nearly nine hours, until 10pm that night, to be admitted, when she was given a nebuliser, and left sitting on a chair until 11.15am on Wednesday.

She was then moved on to a trolley in a day ward.

“I was referred by my GP and I went to St James’s.

“I was there at about 1pm in the day and saw the triage nurse, and was told to go into another cubicle because they were going to put me on a nebuliser,” she said.

“Then someone came in and asked me to go outside for a few minutes – so that would have been at 1.30pm in the day.

“And at 10pm that night, I was put on a nebuliser.

“Part of my lung had collapsed, and I have COPD and emphysema as well.

“I was admitted then at 10pm, and I was on a chair then until I was brought to a ward at about 11.15am on Wednesday morning,” she said. “It was a day ward.”

Noeleen said that she did not have access to shower facilities on the ward, and had to be brought to another ward to wash.

She said the nursing staff were doing the best they could “under the circumstances”.

She said that while they were “fantastic”, she noticed that just one nurse was on duty at one stage between two wards.

“If there had been an emergency, what could she have done?

“I think there was eight trolleys in the ward.”

She said that she also missed the food round for tea and sandwiches when she was sent for a chest X-ray on the Wednesday.

It meant that she had to buy food in the Kylemore café in the hospital, which she said was served cold.

She said that a number of vending machines in the hospital were also out-of-order at the time.

Noeleen was on the same trolley in the day ward until Friday at 4pm.

She said it was “not at all” good enough, and there was no sign of relief to the overcrowding.

She said that she had rung the Health Minister’s office afterwards, but she did not hear back.

The hospital said in response that it did not comment on individual cases.

‘‘ There was one nurse between two wards. If there was an emergency what could she have done?