Safety fears for Limerick A&E department with 45 on trolleys

Nurses raised fears about the safety of the emergency department at University Hospital Limerick yesterday as the number of patients on trolleys reached 45.

Nationally, 471 patients were on hospital trolleys in emergency departments and on wards — the highest over the last two months.

Industrial relations officer with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Patsy Doyle, described the emergency department at the UHL as dangerous.

“The clinical needs of the patients are not being met and every area of the emergency department is over-subscribed,” she said.

She wrote to management yesterday, warning nurses working in the department would not accept the risk to patients.

“We told management that our members will not be held responsible in the event that there is a fatality in the hospital today,” she said.

Ms Doyle said the hospital should have been taken ‘off-call’ because it was simply not fit to be an emergency centre yesterday

“We are trying to provide care but we are not the architects of this crisis. We need to put management on notice that this ad-hoc lack-lustre type of management is doing patients a disservice.”

Other trolley ‘black spots’ yesterday were Waterford Regional Hospital where 43 patients were on trolleys and Beaumont and Connolly in Dublin, where 37 patients were on trolleys. Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda had 31.

Emergency consultant Dr Chris Luke, said he had worked in the emergency department at Cork University Hospital for the last 15 years and conditions were difficult. “I am worn out talking about it,” he said yesterday when there were 16 patients on trolleys.

While initiatives had been taken to deal with overcrowding, conditions in emergency departments were still very difficult. He said it was “frightening” that doctors could not be found to work in hospital emergency departments.

“Of all of my concerns about overcrowding and difficulties, the greatest concern of all is the difficulty finding doctors to work under any circumstances in our emergency departments.”

However, the HSE Mid West said yesterday that patient flow managers were working with clinical teams to transfer patients to regional and community hospitals. It said much of the increase of patients on trolleys could be attributed to increases in the number of people suffering with flu and other seasonal illnesses.

“Hospital management and clinical directors are taking all immediate actions necessary to deal with the increase in demand for their services,” the HSE stated.

Strict visitor restrictions remain at CUH and UHL to curb the spread of flu.