Health service chaos - Inhuman and unacceptable

IT IS difficult to understand how any health service, and in this instance that description requires a leap of faith, could treat Graham Dempsey as it did this weekend.

Mr Dempsey is severely handicapped, he cannot walk or talk, suffers from MS and scoliosis.

This weekend he spent 30 hours on a hospital trolley, vomiting and in pain. He waited overnight for a bed before his family took him home, but not before they had to change his nappies in public.

HSE South said that hospital staff aimed to give the best quality of care possible to patients. “CUH regrets that the family were unhappy... staff are available to directly liaise with the family to address their concerns.”

Mr Dempsey and his family were treated inhumanly and with something bordering on contempt, at this point we can believe nothing else. The HSE’s words ring more than a little hollow in the circumstances.

We have endured blather about staff shortages and bottlenecks in the system for years, they just don’t hold water any more.