Ill mother left in hospital storage room for 3 days

A seriously ill mother who has been in remission from cancer for nine weeks was left in a storage room at a leading hospital for three days because bed shortages meant there was nowhere else to put her.

Charlene Lynch said the situation, which occurred at James Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, West Dublin, over the weekend, left her feeling “like a dog”.

Speaking to a national newspaper yesterday, the 27-year-old mother of one from Mulhuddart said she attended her local hospital late last week for emergency foot surgery.

However, despite having just beaten Hodgkins lymphoma — a form of cancer that attacks lymph nodes in the neck, chest, and groin areas — in June after 12 chemotherapy sessions, Ms Lynch was given a curtain for a blanket and told she had to be kept in a cupboard due to a lack of space on her ward.

“I feel like I’m nothing. I just feel like dirt. My illness hasn’t been taken into consideration or anything,” said Ms Lynch. “They just squeezed me into a room on a trolley. I was in so much pain. To treat someone like this who is actually very, very ill, to put them in a storage room, it’s ridiculous.

“I had to explain to them I had cancer and everything else, then they just put me in the storage room.

“I got told there wasn’t enough beds and it was the only thing they could do.

“A bed became available in the men’s ward, but obviously I can’t go there.”

A spokesperson for Connolly Hospital said they cannot comment on individual cases.

However, the spokesperson added that, “in some cases, a decision may be taken to accommodate a patient in a treatment room off a ward to expedite their surgery”.

Hospital staff representative groups such as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Irish Medical Organisation have consistently raised concerns over a lack of beds for patients in wards across the country.

While health service managers have said there are enough beds in the system, a separate count by the INMO said 2,106 beds were closed nationwide yesterday.

Independent TD Finian McGrath branded the issue at Connolly Hospital as “appalling”, and said he is “disgusted a cancer patient can be treated in this negative and inhumane manner”.

“It is an absolute disgrace that in 2014 cancer patients are being treated as second-class citizens,” he said.

“I will be raising this issue with [Health Minister] Leo Varadkar in the Dáil when it resumes next week.”