Nurses too busy giving first aid to the health service

YOUR columnist Terry Prone (Irish Examiner, May 8) offered nurses a warning, well intentioned no doubt, on the public perception of the image of the profession.

I wish to put a few questions to Ms Prone.

1. Who assesses patients on arrival at A&E?

2. Who identifies immediate healthcare needs and takes action to address them?

3. Who then liaises between the A&E doctor, X-ray, laboratory, admissions office, healthcare assistants, ward clerks, receptionists, porters, ambulance services, tea-makers, the patient and relatives, etc?

4. Who documents all this and communicates the information to other team members and the patient?

5. Who is constantly reminded that documentation must be up-to-the minute?

6. Who deals with phone enquiries regarding patients?

7. Who assesses and documents the patient’s response to treatment?

8. Who listens to patients’ and relatives’ complaints regarding the inadequacies of the healthcare system?

9. Who advises them to complain to budget-holders and policymakers? (Many decline because they wish only to vent their frustration there and then).

10. Who must account for the inadequacies of the healthcare system when written complaints arrive?

11. Who must decide where best to care for patients attending A&E and provide care for all those awaiting beds — the elderly, incontinent, confused, critically ill, those requiring oxygen or cardiac monitoring, or with reduced mobility?

12. Who must do all this regardless of the media portrayal, public perception and the INO’s or Ms Harney’s current spin on the profession?

There is little doubt in my mind that Irish Examiner readers are well aware of who does all this and that they can differentiate between spin and reality.

Ms Prone, a communications expert, suggested that communication issues could be resolved by ‘the five minute/300 second dash’.

One nurse to communicate with more than 30 people in five minutes. Does she truly believe this is possible? This translates as a 10-second communication encounter per person.

People have a right to know what is happening and why, but management’s response that staff are too busy to communicate is interesting. Nothing about staffing levels; nothing about improving patient services’ departments to address complaints and communicate directly with patients rather than through written correspondence during office hours only.

Nothing about the ludicrous situation where meals and tea must now be considered for patients awaiting beds in A&E — patients who should not still be there in the first place.

Management’s preferred option is unpaid volunteers to address A&E communication difficulties. Its concerns in this regard include industrial relations and demarcation issues, not patient confidentiality, child protection or ethical issues.

It certainly makes one wonder when a management team even considers the recruitment of volunteers as a solution to a communication problem and depends on the altruistic nature of the community at large to act as a stopgap in a national scandal.

Mary Fitzgerald

‘The Meadow’

Clarina

Co Limerick