Emergency doctors call for HSE to provide 24-hour social work cover

EMERGENCY doctors have backed calls for the Health Service Executive (HSE) to provide 24-hour social work cover, claiming they are being used as a catch-all for social problems that should be handled elsewhere.

The Irish Association of Emergency Medicine (IAEM) — which represents doctors in A&E departments — say they are regularly left dealing with out-of-hours crises involving at-risk children, domestic violence victims, the homeless, the elderly and other vulnerable people whose problems are only partly medical or not medical at all.

“Emergency medicine serves as a healthcare safety net for a broad range of medical, psychological and social problems in adults and children alike,” it said. “It is inappropriate that such problems, which could be more appropriately managed in alternative care settings, are foisted on already overstretched emergency departments because of deficiencies elsewhere in the healthcare system.”