Nurses criticise Galway hospital protocol

A 78-YEAR-OLD patient has been forced to spend the last four nights on a trolley in University Hospital Galway (UHG) due to overcrowding.

According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation (INMO), there were 38 patients on trolleys in the emergency department awaiting admission yesterday morning. Eight of these have been waiting for three days.

INMO hit out at the conditions and said the hospital has now moved to full capacity protocol, which means the placing of extra patients on already full wards throughout the hospital.

INMO industrial relations officer Regina Durcan said: “The HSE is in breach of its own policy, by implementing the full capacity protocol, as all other options must be exhausted before this is invoked.

“Management have opened the medical assessment unit as normal, an area which would frequently be used as an overflow for trolleys during peaks in activity, and no elective surgeries have been cancelled so far.”

Ms Durcan said there were 25 beds closed in UHG and 91 in Merlin Park Hospital and claimed that a further 35 beds in UHG are unavailable due to the reduction in continuing long term care beds and the cutbacks in community based services.

“The Minister for Health, James Reilly, must intervene in this crisis, with immediate effect. Patients are suffering intolerable conditions and INMO members are at breaking point throughout the hospital.

“They are endeavouring to provide the best care possible in dreadful conditions but cannot, and will not, condone what is happening in UHG at the moment.”

INMO has called for all closed beds to be opened, for extra staff and for the HSE to manage all staff at the hospital effectively.

In a statement, the HSE said: “In order to safely manage patients waiting in the emergency department for admission and have facilities available for emergencies that may present during the day, the hospital had to implement its full capacity protocol.

“This means that a number of patients were being transferred to the 12 wards in the hospital, where they were being monitored until a bed became available — an average of one to two additional patients on each of the wards.”

Later it said the full capacity protocol had been stood down.