Nurses must not block ward moves

The record number of 422 patients on trolleys in Accident and Emergency departments of our hospitals yesterday is the direct responsibility of health care officials, and the medical and nursing professions.

Health Minister Mary Harney had already produced a 10-point plan to rectify the situation.

Part of the solution is to free up beds in hospital wards by transferring those patients who belong in nursing homes rather than hospitals. The plan also provides for 300 new hospital beds.

In addition, there are plans to alleviate the strain on A&E departments by providing extra clinics, to deal with acute medical problems and treat minor injuries. These changes are likely to take some time in implementing.

Resolving the immediate overcrowding in A&E could be quickly resolved. “If each ward took one to two extra patients on a trolley up on the ward, then our problem would disappear over night,” Dr Aidan Gleeson of Beaumont Hospital said yesterday.

But this cannot be done because the nurses would walk out in protest on the grounds that it would be unsafe to have two extra patients in a ward with just six to eight nurses.

It is obviously much less safe to allow eight to nine nurses to cover an A&E department that sees 130 new patients a day, some very seriously ill or injured, while as many as 40 extra patients are being kept on trolleys within the department. This is a recipe for disaster.

Moving a couple of extra patients into each ward as an interim measure is much safer than holding emergency patients hostage, even if it is to ensure better medical facilities for patients in the long run. This is not just reckless and irresponsible it is crazy.

Allowing the current practice to continue will reflect very poorly on the real commitment of nurses to help the sick. The immediate crisis is really about industrial relations when it should be about patient care.