Trolley crisis hits ambulance service

AMBULANCES in Limerick were out of commission yesterday when emergency medical staff needed extra trollies at the city’s overcrowded regional hospital.

Emergency department consultant at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Dr Colman O’Leary, described the situation as critical.

He said all available bed spaces were in use and incoming ambulances were taken out of service to allow staff access their trollies.

In a memo to all staff in the region yesterday morning, he appealed for patients to be directed elsewhere.

“The emergency department at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital is at this point so overcrowded we are holding patients on ambulance trollies while awaiting examination space,” it read.

“(A transfer) here will mean the patient will have to remain on the ambulance trolley, thus disabling that ambulance’s further response potential. Any incident now likely to need more than a single ambulance response or two calls for separate ambulance responses is unlikely to be met.”

Last night Dr O’Leary said the situation had improved but interest groups would continue to cripple Limerick’s A&E by protecting themselves rather than patients: “There was a directive issued last year that all patients from emergency wards should be accommodated in general wards but, for some reason they keep to themselves, the Irish Nurses Organisation object to it and it is has not been implemented.

“People are holding out for the ideal instead of stopping what is happening. Everybody needs to do the right thing rather than guarding their own patch.”

Clare Fine Gael general election candidate Tony Mulcahy said it was unacceptable overcrowding had left people in the Mid-west region with sub-standard healthcare.

“This is an absolute appalling indictment of the health service. If you think that across Clare and Limerick, if there are two accidents or one big accident, the ambulances would have been tied up giving trollies to the emergency department.”

The INO’s Mary Fogarty said the situation was unprecedented at the hospital.

“Our members are angry that management of the HSE have failed to put in place appropriate initiatives to help alleviate the increasing trolley numbers over the past two years. The INO is calling on the A&E task force to immediately address the deteriorating situation.”

She said no progress had been made to open up a minor injuries clinic in the emergency department.

A hospital spokesman said yesterday’s overcrowding arose from a seasonal surge: “We would appeal to people to stay away unless it is a real emergency. Last year we had the same problem on the same week. We have had a major problem today.”