Trolley figures up a quarter on 2015

Varadkar under f ire over increase

TROLLEY numbers this week soared by 29% compared with this time last year – leading to fresh criticism of Health Minister Leo Varadkar from top emergency doctors.

Frosty weather and a growing flu epidemic that has already killed four means next week is likely to be just as bad.

During a tour of emergency departments a fortnight ago, Mr Varadkar insisted numbers were down 15% for the first two weeks of this year compared to 2015, even though that was the worst year since records began.

‘The core issue is bed availability’

However, by Thursday of this week his spin doctors had decided the better line was saying there was a 10% reduction across 30 days compared to last year. This was because this week’s figures on their own show an increase of about one-quarter right through the week.

Trolley figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation showed numbers were up year-onyear for every day this week, ranging from 65 extra people on Wednesday to 127 on Thursday.

And yesterday there were 106 people waiting longer than nine hours according to HSE boss Tony O’Brien.

Mr O’Brien made unannounced visits to the A&E units of Limerick and Galway hospitals this week, where he praised staff for their hard work.

He also released a graph showing how numbers are climbing rapidly towards the peak reached last January – when, on just one day, 601 people were on trolleys.

But the minister’s view is that it could take five years of sustained investment to fix the problem and that people should not make unnecessary visits to A&Es.

Dr Mark Doyle, head of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine, was dismissive of calls for people to avoid hospitals: ‘There isn’t an avalanche of unnecessary attendances. You don’t know that it’s unnecessary until you’ve gone through the process. So it’s not a helpful discussion really. It tends to distract from the core issue, which is bed availability.’

A spokesman for the minister accepted yesterday that the trolley situation was worsening, but insisted Mr Varadkar was not ‘losing ground’.