Nurses call for action to tackle A&E crisis

Evelyn Ring

A peak of 365 patients were waiting for beds as nurses in hospitals around the country struggled to cope with fresh admissions.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) called for a number of steps to be taken to ease the crisis including the cancellation of all elective admissions and day procedures, additional ward rounds by hospital consultants to ensure speedy discharge, the purchase of all available nursing home beds and the employment of additional nursing and other support staff to deal with the extra workloads.

INO general secretary Liam Doran said the patient care environment in A&E units up and down the country had hit a new low.

None of the nurses he spoke to felt the situation was improving as a result of the 70 million A&E action plan outlined by Tánaiste and Health Minister, Mary Harney.

“There are no short-term alleviating measures. We are three years highlighting this problem and, regrettably, today’s figure is the highest I can recall,” said Mr Doran.

Mr Doran said he was equally concerned the Government did not appear to be implementing any of the medium-term strategies to alleviate overcrowding in the future. “The 10-point plan previously announced by the Tánaiste, together with other initiatives proposed by this organisation, must now be implemented immediately,” he said.

In addition, he said the Government had to invest in primary care services, to allow treatment of patients at first port of call, and to increase bed capacity.

“While this will bring little comfort, to patients in the short term, it is the only way that we will not be talking about this level of overcrowding in two, three and four years time,” Mr Doran added.

The Health Service Executive said it was working with hospitals on measures aimed at minimising the need for people to go to A& E units.

“While we would all like to see immediate solutions it will take some time to address the capacity and other issues involved,” said Dr Pat Doorley, the HSE’s director of Population Health.

FG Health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey said while spending on hospitals had increased by 73% in the last five years, the A&E crisis had worsened.

Yesterday, Letterkenny General Hospital had 34 patients on trolleys, a situation described as “horrendous” by Mr Doran.

INO Letterkenny representative, Therese Gallagher, said the hospital’s A&E unit experienced its worst day ever.

Last November a committee established to deal with the hospital’s bed capacity problem wrote an open letter to the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and Ms Harney asking for 70 extra beds. No response was received.

In Wexford General Hospital there were 28 patients on trolleys even though the unit is designed to cater for four trolleys at a time. All elective surgery has been cancelled at the hospital.

In Clonmel Hospital in Co Tipperary 17 patients were on trolleys awaiting admission yesterday.

Janette Byrne of Patients Together said the bed situation showed the 55 A&E charge had not improved the situation. “People are going to hospital A&E’s because they have to, regardless of how much it costs them,” she said.