Health service chief admits A&E conditions unacceptable

THE head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) yesterday acknowledged that the conditions that patients and staff had to contend with were not acceptable in as many as 15 of the country’s 35 A&E wards.

However, Professor Brendan Drumm argued that patient management systems in some hospitals contributed to the crisis as much as bed shortages.

The HSE chief executive, who was addressing the Oireachtas Committee on Health, argued that the problem could not be dealt with in isolation.

He said that A&E units were for accidents and emergencies but in Dublin and in some other hospitals, they had become a replacement for primary care services provided by GPs.

In the wake of actor Brendan Gleeson’s outspoken condemnation of “disgusting” A&E wards and the Tánaiste’s portrayal of the crisis as a “national emergency”, the HSE this week established a task force to deal with the problem.

Prof Drumm said the HSE had three objectives to alleviate the situation in the short term. No patient would wait more than 24 hours in A&E, he said. Moreover, no more than 10 patients would be waiting for admission to a ward; and while waiting, patients would be guaranteed privacy and dignity.

Prof Drumm accepted there were infrastructural problems in a number of A&E wards.

“We are going to address these conditions with both urgent and short-term measures and major capital investments projects,” he said.

But rejecting the contention that it was solely an issue for HSE management, he also pointed to deficiencies in patient management in some hospitals.

He said that in some A&E units, patients had to deal with five or six medical staff before completing the admission process, and that contributed to delays. He also referred to consultants and services not being available out of hours and at weekends.

He said that in some cases, there could be 150 beds available “on the other side of the wall” yet people still had to wait five or six hours to be allowed through.

However, Prof Drumm agreed with the Green Party’s John Gormley that the responsibility to deal with those inefficiencies ultimately lay with him and with Tánaiste Mary Harney.

The Tánaiste said permanent improvements would depend on wider reforms of the service but went on to say that significant improvements could be made now.

Fine Gael’s health spokesperson Liam Twomey said that little had been done to alleviate the situation for the past 10 years.

His Labour counterpart Liz McManus portrayed the Tánaiste’s 10-point plan from late 2004 as “a flop”.

“This is why Brendan Gleeson struck a chord. Particularly with elderly sick people, there is a feeling that they have been abandoned,” she said.