Woman was 'fighting delirium' during 60 virtually sleepless hours of waiting in CUH
Elaine Galvin has registered a complaint with the HSE's Your Service Your Say and was pleased to get a response indicating her concerns were passed on. Picture: Elaine Galvin
Elaine Galvin was not surprised to hear Hiqa found serious problems in hospital emergency departments, including Cork University Hospital, having spent 60 hours there in mid-November.
The damning report from the health watchdog warned that patients are not protected from harm in three of the seven hospitals it surveyed. It found lengthy wait times in several institutions, including one instance of a patient waiting 116 hours on a trolley.
For Ms Galvin, her ordeal began at 9am on Thursday, November 17, when she attended with a respiratory virus. This was her second visit having been told to return if medication was not relieving her symptoms.
It was busy but she was triaged and assessed quickly. She then joined patients waiting in individual ‘pods’ which she described as “like a Perspex box” with a chair.
“For two hours, I coughed violently and in severe difficulty without any medical support,” she said.
“Above my head, people who walked by were looking down to see us all sitting there. There are no curtains, no screens provided for privacy or dignity.”
One nurse kept apologising, saying she was swamped with 40 patients. “She was quite distressed it had taken her so long to get back to me,” Ms Galvin recalled.
Around 9pm she was reviewed by a doctor and told she would be admitted. She was given nebulisers and moved to a different area where ‘pods’ have fold-out chairs.
“The chair is not fit for purpose for sleeping long-term on. It's hard, there's no mattress, there were no pillows. I had to use my coat to rest my head high to reduce my coughing fits,” she said.
The nurse station did not appear to have a clear view of these patients, she said, and she could not see a call or emergency bell.
“The severe fluorescent lights in the inner concourse where (this pod) is located remain on 24 hours a day, making it extremely difficult to rest,” she said.
“The lights are torturous and disorientating to those of us sick. I slept one hour the first night, four hours the second night. I was fighting delirium but the lights, noise, machines and voices make it impossible to sleep.”
Nurses switched her to a trolley with a mattress, by then she was "emotionally and physically drained" and said: “I felt I can't get better here.”
Food is provided in takeaway boxes instead of trays because of overcrowding.
“My ribs were bursting because of my pain (from coughing), I had to balance all that and then lean down to get the tea,” she said of mealtimes.
All this time, a door in front was open onto a triage area so she could clearly see other patients and vice versa.
At 5am on Saturday, she asked the ED nurse manager for help as breakfast was not substantial enough to help digest her heavy medications.
“Human kindness goes a long way when you're sick," she said, praising this woman for arranging access to a shower and tea with toast.
“I spent 60 hours in the ED before I was moved into the Bandon Suite on a trolley after I broke down Saturday night,” she said.
“I said I was going to self-discharge despite being quite sick.” She was moved late Saturday night and onto a ward Sunday morning.
Since then she has registered a complaint with the HSE's Your Service Your Say and was pleased to get a response indicating her concerns were passed on.
“I did that because I wanted to be fair, it’s to make things better for us,” she said.
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