The Health Service Executive of Ireland is implementing additional measures to alleviate the crisis at its hospitals. Including the implementation of seven-day workweeks, but the current scenario is worse than its “most pessimistic modeling.”
A prominent emergency medicine physician has described Ireland’s overcrowded hospitals as life-threatening, while the director of the health service has acknowledged that deaths have occurred as a result of the situation.
Hundreds of patients wait daily on hospital trolleys in Ireland due to a dearth of acute hospital beds. And an increase in respiratory ailments due to the winter season. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), which recorded 438 patients on trolleys on Friday. Stated that it had not seen January statistics this poor since it began keeping track in 2006.
Dr. Peadar Gilligan, an emergency medicine consultant at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital, told that the situation is dire.
Patients who visit significantly overcrowded emergency departments are more likely to die from a preventable cause, he explained. Therefore, it is unquestionably hazardous and must be addressed.
“Extremely difficult”
Dr. Gilligan stated that conditions at Beaumont Hospital are “very difficult”. And that it is “quite difficult to locate a clinical room in the ED to treat patients.” Patients and their families are “worried” about the care they are receiving, he stated.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) of Ireland claims it is implementing further measures to alleviate the problem. Such as implementing seven-day work for hospital employees, including senior physicians, to expedite the discharge of weekend patients.
Nonetheless, the HSE reports that the current operational situation exceeds its “most pessimistic modeling.” If patients had died as a result of hospital overcrowding, chief executive Stephen Mulvany responded that it was “impossible for me to say with certainty,” but that it was “definitely very realistic.”
According to a study conducted by the NHS, delayed hospital admission following a visit to the ED is related to increased mortality.
Dr. Colm Henry, a chief clinical officer of the HSE, added, “There is a definite relationship between delayed admission to the ward and death.” It is difficult to determine if this is directly linked to that or whether it is associated with the fact that these people are already ill, and suffering from pneumonia, heart attacks, strokes, or other ailments.
“However, I have no problem stating that yes, delays in a presentation to the ward are connected. As we know, with increased mortality, and even more so, those who are delayed in being seen at emergency rooms are extremely dangerous.”
It was simply traumatic.
The circumstance brings back bitter memories for Marie McMahon, from County Clare, of her husband Tommy Wynne’s death on a trolley at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) in 2018. The hospital issued an apology after he was transported to the emergency department with a suspected stroke and died without being admitted to a ward after spending 36 hours on a trolley.
Earlier this month, a “serious internal emergency” was declared due to “severe” levels of congestion at UHL. Making it one of the worst-affected hospitals this winter. It is a disturbing reminder to Ms. McMahon that the conditions her husband faced during his final hours have not improved.
She told, “It was just traumatic.” “There were folks supine between two shopping carts. People wailing for a bedpan, people being sick, individuals defecating on themselves, and people in severe misery on their own. “There is no privacy, no decency, and no respect,”
Five years later, Ms. McMahon says she does not hold the staff responsible. She now advocates for improved conditions. She says, “Of course, it makes me angry.” However, I must turn my fury into action.
The big problem at UHL has already been resolved, but the health system continues to experience severe overcrowding.
National Ambulance Service (NAS)
As in the United Kingdom, ambulance turnaround times are severely impacted by the inability of paramedics to perform patient handovers in overcrowded emergency departments. The private sector is requested to contribute.
Tommy Maguire and Darragh Geoghegan were preparing their €200,000 (about £177,000) emergency ambulance for a journey to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin.
Lifeline’s 28 ambulances transport patients for hospitals. Freeing National Ambulance Service (NAS) workers to respond to 999 calls and helping hospitals to discharge patients more quickly.
Tommy predicts that the situation would worsen if patients do not vacate hospitals and free up beds. It is our responsibility, and a crucial one, to transport patients as fast and efficiently as possible to free up beds for those who truly require them.
With the peak of the flu season not expected for some weeks and the HSE predicting several more weeks of high case levels. There is currently no indication that the outbreak will abate.
Dr. Gilligan groans as he recalls “discussing this every winter for twenty years.” The former head of the doctors’ union the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO). Asserts that the system will need an additional 5,000 acute hospital beds to resolve the chronic overcrowding crisis.
His message to the HSE is straightforward. “Bed capacity needs to be made accessible.”
