14,500 is the estimated toll of the trolly crisis since 2015. It must end

FOR years now, we have known that long waits in hospital emergency departments can be, and are, deadly.

A study commissioned by the UK’s National Health Service found that the likelihood of death increased exponentially the longer a patient was left unseen on a trolley or in a chair.

The figure the authors of the report recorded was stark. For every 72 patients left to wait 12 hours, one would die. Applying that metric to waiting times here in Ireland – a valid comparison, according to report coauthor Steve Black – reveals a deeply shocking, and entirely avoidable, toll of fatalities.

Figures released under Parliamentary Question to David Cullinane TD show that since 2015, 1,055,053 patients waited 12 hours or more. Of those patients, 271,576 waited 24 hours or more, and of those people, 84,263 waited for more than 36 hours.

If the death of one patient can be attributed to every 72 patients left to wait for between eight and 12 hours, a calculated estimate shows the expected outcome would be the death of 14,650 people over the course of the past seven years. That is a likely impact of 2,000 people dying a year, or more than five people for every day of the past seven years when averaged out.

The study did not specifically measure likely death rates for those who waited longer, but data analyst Mr Black insists that a further increase in fatal outcomes is highly likely.

When we asked Mr Black if this was a reliable number, his reply was chilling. ‘This sounds like a defensible and conservative way of doing the calculation,’ he said. ‘You could safely say it might be worse.’

Those figures are mind-boggling but, crucially, when put to those on the frontline of this crisis, not a surprise.

This stark assessment in no way diminishes the care and competence of the frontline workers. What it instead points to is systemic breakdown, an inability to properly staff and resource what for most people is their first point of contact with vital medical care.

Year after year, seasonal illnesses such as the flu – illnesses that are entirely predictable – overwhelm the health service.

Covid may diminish in severity as time progresses, but there seems little doubt it too will be an unwelcome guest for many years to come, and the system as now established simply is not fit for purpose.

This is not inevitable. When Tallaght Hospital saw patients actually die on trolleys, a new plan was implemented, which ensured patients were moved as quickly as possible from trolleys to beds on the wards.

The solution to the trolley crisis has been worked out.

It simply has never been properly resourced. Measures such as building more stepdown facilities and, particularly, offering proper follow-up care to people in their own homes are key initiatives which can no longer be long-fingered.

Throwing money at hospitals without opening extra beds is pointless, when that money could more usefully be spent on home care that would free up beds for those needing acute care rather than routine health maintenance.

We have lost 6,786 of our fellow citizens to coronavirus since the pandemic arrived on these shores two years ago.

Based on the figures vouched for by Mr Black, we lost twice that many people since 2015 for no reason at all other than a lack of foresight, planning and resources to deal with the annual trolley crises.

In a developed country, that is a truly savage indictment of a HSE unfit for purpose.