Consultant likens emergency departments to ‘human landfill site’

An outspoken emergency medicine consultant has described working in an emergency department (ED) as “a bit like working in a human landfill site” where waiting rooms are increasingly like “refugee camps”.

Chris Luke said that EDs are “not just toxic and unpleasant” but “actually dangerous for many, many people”.

Dr Luke, who works at both the Mercy University Hospital and Cork University Hospital, said that an analysis of patient outcomes figures over the past five or ten years showed “dozens of people die in our EDs throughout the year because of delays in treatment, because of difficulties getting access to imaging and interventions and so on, not to mention beds”.

He said there had been discussion in the British and Irish press about the “imminent collapse of the health service” in both countries.

“People talk about resources, and the Government doing this and the Government doing that,” said Dr Luke.

“I would say ultimately it is about a mixture of lifestyle and longevity... and perhaps consumerism, the consumerism which gave us plastic in the ocean.

“So we have not yet made the correct diagnosis, and the diagnosis is far more about morality and ethics and lifestyle than it is about simple resources.”

Addressing a conference on Innovations in Dementia Care in Cork, Dr Luke said doctors and nurses needed to remember when dealing with a patient with dementia or delirium in the ED “to be kind”.

“The most important thing you can do... is to hold the person’s hand for 20 seconds. The transfer of warmth, the touching of a fellow human is astonishing powerful.”