Hospital overcrowding 'form of torture and increases risk of death' 

Overcrowding in hospitals is 'dangerous', 'is a form of torture' and increases the risk of patients dying but has become accepted as normal, the Oireachtas health committee heard on Wednesday.

Overcrowding in hospitals is "is a form of torture" and increases the risk of patients dying but has become accepted as normal, the Oireachtas health committee heard on Wednesday.

The crisis is also causing burnout among paramedics, nurses and doctors, health trade unions told the committee.

They called for at least 5,000 additional hospital beds along with 550 ICU beds plus immediate increased recruitment across the services and proper implementation of Sláintecare reforms.

The committee also heard 5,457 more people called for an ambulance in January compared to January 2019 and there was an “overall systems failure” in community and hospital care.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, the Irish Medical Organisation, and health sector representatives for Siptu and Fórsa addressed the committee.

Dr Mick Molloy, emergency department consultant and member of the IMO consultant committee, said “record hospital waiting lists” were the direct results of failures to invest in bed capacity, infrastructure and the medical workforce.

He told Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane that overcrowding in busy EDs leads to “a form of torture” and said: 

I can tell you exactly what the impact of the waiting times and trolley times is, it is death.” 

Referring to a large-scale British study published in January, he said it found delays of more than six hours correspond to one extra death for every 82 patients, within 30 days.

Some patients can spend their whole time in hospital on a trolley, they are “going for treatment and returning to the trolley”, INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said.

She told the committee a framework on safe staffing levels agreed with the Government before the pandemic was only being applied in 12 hospitals.

INMO president Karen McGowan is an ED nurse and said the problems were getting worse on a daily basis. Referring to patients, she said: 

The indignity of what they are enduring is horrendous.”

The IMO is not confident Sláintecare reforms can be implemented, Vanessa Hetherington, IMO assistant director told Róisín Shortall, Social Democrats health spokesperson.

'Illegal and unsafe working hours'

She said understaffed hospitals were coping with high patient numbers by applying “illegal and unsafe working hours” for doctors, and overcrowding is “dangerous” for patients.

Ms Ní Sheaghdha told Fine Gael TD Colm Burke recruitment was "so difficult" under current bureaucratic expectations and rules, criticising unnecessary red tape. 

She also warned of increasing levels of violence against nurses, as patients take out their frustrations on staff, including unusually high rates of aggression in children's hospitals.

John McCamley of Siptu warned ambulance turnaround times were increasing, citing eight cases of four- to five-hour turnarounds in Waterford during January.

He called for urgent investment in home care and other community services to reduce the demand for ambulances. He said ED overcrowding was just the “chokepoint for wider issues”.

Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe and Senator Martin Conway raised the issue of overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick as a specific concern.

Dr Molloy said the closure of smaller emergency departments in the region continued to have a negative impact, leading to higher patient numbers at UHL compared to other similarly sized hospitals.

Catherine Keogh, assistant general secretary of Fórsa, urged the committee to support the Sláintecare plan for 96 new community healthcare networks, saying these would address “the underlying issues” in the health service.

She said the union has had “no real interaction” with the Government on recruitment and other issues linked to this plan.