Doctor: A&E abuse will come back to haunt us

A leading doctor has warned the Government that future generations will accuse it of ignoring A&E overcrowding “abuse” in the same way as “clerical sex abuse, the Tuam babies and Magdalene Laundry scandals” unless they immediately tackle the crisis.

Tallaght hospital emergency consultant Dr James Gray made the claim in a letter to Health Minister Simon Harris.

In the letter, the medic said the situation at his facility is worse now than when a high-profile emergency investigation was launched in 2011.

Citing his own experience at Tallaght hospital, Dr Gray — who has previously spoken out publicly to raise concerns about conditions — outlined a series of crisis situations at his hospital which he said are being repeated elsewhere.

Dr Gray said the overcrowding crisis is “dangerous” and that the issue is worse now than when the Health Information Quality Authority (Hiqa) launched a statutory investigation in 2011 into the hospital after the death of Thomas Walsh, who had spent hours “languishing on a trolley”.

And in a clear warning to officials, he added: “We will look back on this era in the same way as we have more recently regarding clerical sex abuse scandals, the Tuam babies scandal, or the Magdalene Laundry scandals.

“Hospital overcrowding and the 350 related deaths annually constitutes an ongoing state institutional scandal that will come back to haunt us all.”

In a statement responding to the concerns, Mr Harris said he will publish “robust” interim findings of the State’s hospital bed capacity review this month and that the full review will be “finalised and published before the end of the year”.

However, his comments were criticised by Fianna Fáil health spokesperson Billy Kelleher, who said it is “simply not good enough” that Mr Harris is “parroting the same line” about the bed capacity review while overcrowding levels continue to rise.