Watchdog praised for handling of investigation

The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine (IAEM) praised the Health Information and Quality Authority on the thoroughness of its investigation.

The body said consultants had expressed concerns to the authority about the practice of boarding patients on trolleys in an open corridor beside the hospital’s emergency department.

“These concerns and the many steps taken by consultants in emergency medicine in their fruitless attempts to have these concerns acted upon by hospital management were revealed at the coroner’s inquests that followed the tragic deaths of two admitted patients who were boarded on a corridor in the emergency department,” said the IAEM.