Judge defends hospital trolleys

The hospital trolley — “icons of utter misery and neglect in the health service” — has found a defender in the form of a High Court judge.

Mr Justice Henry Abbot had interjected during senior counsel Michael Gleeson’s opening remarks in a case when he referred to a woman being on a hospital trolley for 48 hours, following a broken hip sustained in a fall at Dunnes Stores in Clonakilty, Co Cork.

The judge said: “Trolleys get a very bad press. But if someone says ‘theatre is ready’ or ‘the senior houseman is ready upstairs’ they can rush you to where the action is and put you into a lift if necessary.

“Trolleys are icons of utter misery and neglect in the health service.

“But having been on a trolley I have seen the advantages. It does not cut much ice with me. Trolleys are very flexible pieces of equipment. They can be moved into a lift. I am quite neutral on trolleys.”

Mr Justice Abbot said that apart from his experience, there were objective advantages to the trolley.

On the first day of a civil action against Dunnes Stores, Bernadette O’Leary, aged 77, of Cross Road House, Ahaliskey, Ballinascarthy, Clonakilty, said that, following the incident, she is “never free of pain”. She said she spent a long time on a hospital trolley — 48 hours.

She had been in the shop on July 2, 2013, looking for a waterproof canopy for her Friday market stall of homemade cakes and other foods when the incident occurred.

She was following a shop assistant: “I asked if it was waterproof. He said, ‘I will find out, follow me.’ I followed him. I came around an aisle. There was something on the floor. I did not see it, it got stuck in my foot. I stumbled and stumbled and stumbled and I fell.”

The case, in which Dunnes Stores denies liability, continues.