500 people treated on hospital trolleys

THE number of patients treated on hospital trolleys yesterday was 500, which exceeds a level once referred to by Health Minister Mary Harney as a national emergency.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), which compiles the trolley figures, claimed Emergency Departments& have reached breaking point.

Dave Hughes, INMO deputy general secretary, called on the Government to take action before the situation worsens.

In 2007 there were 50,402 people on trolleys and in 2009 this figure was 60,327, an increase of 20%.

In 2006, Ms Harney declared emergency department overcrowding a “national emergency” when trolley figures reached 495, Mr Hughes said.

“The Minister for Health seems to accept that it is okay for patients to be lying on trolleys when wards in the same hospital are empty,” he said.

“We need the minister and the Health Service Executive (HSE) to reopen closed wards and address staff shortages.”

The INMO claimed 896 beds have been closed by the HSE since January ’09.

Labour spokeswoman on health, Jan O’Sullivan, said the overcrowding in the Limerick Regional Hospital was nothing short of scandalous.

“Frontline health staff are literally run off their feet and it is simply not acceptable that both staff and patients have to continue to endure these conditions,” she said.

“When are the management of the HSE, both locally and nationally, going to deal once and for all with the ongoing issues that are plaguing our health services for years? When will decisive action be taken by the HSE to guarantee a minimum level of care and patient safety?” she said.

Meanwhile, members of SIPTU and the INMO held a lunchtime protest at the Mater Private hospital in Dublin yesterday.

According to SIPTU, the action was in protest at the 5% to 7.5% pay cuts imposed on staff by the hospital management.

Staff at the Mater Private hospital have served strike notice and threatened a full withdrawal of their labour from the start of next month.

“As the Mater Private is a profit-making organisation, these imposed, non-agreed pay cuts are in fact illegal and unnecessary,” the unions said in a joint statement.

Mater Private chief executive Fergus Clancy confirmed pay cuts came in from January 1. He said the decision by the unions was “disappointing”.

Mr Clancy said the hospital had indicated prior to the budget that it would need to introduce pay cuts.

“But given that our competitors, some of whom had already gone before the budget with deeper pay cuts, we were determined to wait until we saw what happened with the national pay scales,” he said.