Overcrowding crisis: A hospital service that’s off its trolley

DESPITE promises by the Government, Health Minister Leo Varadkar, and HSE management, the issue of overcrowding in the nation’s hospitals continues to worsen.

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda is a case in point. It has been experiencing some of the worst overcrowding in the country over the past few days, with more than 40 patients left regularly on trolleys in its emergency department, awaiting a bed.

Patients, many of them elderly, have spent up to five days on trolleys, in intolerable conditions.

The Labour Relations Commission yesterday chaired talks between the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and hospital management in an effort to reach agreement to resolve the situation, but, judging by what has happened in the recent past, talks are not enough.

Despite the intervention of the LRC last November and the deferral of industrial action by INMO members, there were 735 patients waiting for a bed in January compared to 462 in January 2014, a 59% increase.

According to the INMO, the level of overcrowding within the emergency department in Drogheda is dangerous and is putting the health, safety, and well-being of patients and staff at risk.

The INMO says its members are exasperated and exhausted, trying to cope with unsafe levels of overcrowding.

Efforts are being made to recruit additional staff but hospital staff have every reason to be sceptical of promises. An extra 24 beds had already been promised by hospital management but not delivered.

Why is this continuing to happen, not just in Drogheda but in many hospitals?

There is no escaping the reality that good intentions by hospital staff and management will come to nought without increased funding for an essential service.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams made that point yesterday when he warned in the Dáil that the Government was not taking the trolleys crisis seriously enough. “It is clear the Government is not providing adequate resources,” Mr Adams said.

In response, Taoiseach Enda Kenny insisted the matter was not simply a question of money. “If it was a question of money, it would have been fixed years ago,” he said.

“It is an issue that arises on a regular basis and it is a case of being able to manage it effectively in the interests of the patients,” Mr Kenny said during leaders’ questions.

The Taoiseach’s assessment of this chronic problem as a seasonal inconvenience is wide of the mark. There is no getting away from the fact that our health service continues to be underfunded.

The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine has said that health authorities need more money to deal with overcrowding in emergency departments and elsewhere in hospitals.

According to its spokesman, consultant Fergal Hickey, overcrowding is a problem that nobody is prepared to solve.

It is hard to disagree with that assessment.