Nurses: Hospital managers hiding A&E crisis

Nurses hit out at hospital management today accusing them of attempting to hide the escalating crisis in the country’s accident and emergency wards.

Liam Doran, general secretary of the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO), said hospital authorities had accused them of exaggerating the numbers of patients on trolleys.

But Mr Doran said the nurses working the overcrowded wards in hospitals around the country were adamant the situation was critical.

“The behaviour of some hospital managements, with regard to this problem, is now reaching the level of farce,” Mr Doran said.

The INO said the amount of patients on trolleys early today stood at 182, excluding figures from Naas General and St James’s hospitals, who have not yet released today’s numbers.

Mr Doran said the problems had not eased off, with 221 people counted on trolleys yesterday morning and 149 patients awaiting beds early on Monday last.

Janette Byrne, spokeswoman for Patients Together, said the Health Minister Mary Harney had promised to address hygiene issues in hospitals during last Friday’s meeting.

“Although the Tánaiste was sympathetic she said it would basically take months before things changed,” Ms Byrne added.

Ms Byrne, who joined other families to set up the lobby group to improve conditions after her mother, Kathleen, spent almost five days on a trolley in the Mater Hospital, said that was not good enough.

The campaigner said she informed the Tánaiste that there were spots of blood and vomit surrounding her mother’s trolley for several days.

“I believe that to clean them was virtually impossible down to the overcrowding. There was also no soap in a toilet that was being used by everybody and with the winter vomiting bug in the wards,” Ms Byrne said.

She said members of patients’ families, including two of her own, had contracted the bug while keeping watch over the sick person in the ward.

On that point, a Mater Hospital spokesperson said: "The Mater Hospital rejects the allegation that indivdual members of the public would have contracted the Winter Vomit Bug while visiting patients in the hospital during the period in question. There was no infection control evidence of the bug being in existence in wards at that time."

Ms Byrne said the group had informed the Tánaiste that patients’ privacy and dignity were being violated and looked for a limit to the amount of time spent on trolleys awaiting beds.

She queried how the packed wards would cope if a serious accident involving dozens of victims occurred.

Patients Together, which has received over 275 e-mails since it was set up last month, said one of its latest reports came from the neighbour of a 92-year-old woman.

Ms Byrne said she was told the lady, who had worked in the Richmond Hospital all her life, had no family members with her and had been lying on a trolley in Dublin’s Mater Hospital since Sunday.

“It is very frustrating. People are being treated really badly. As people have said, animals are being treated better,” she added.

Patients Together is to march on the Dáil on Saturday to highlight the continuing crisis in A&E wards.