A&E crisis - Patients need action not words

NOBODY could blame Irish nurses for taking to the streets in protest against the Third World conditions which patients and staff endure at overcrowded accident and emergency centres in hospitals across the country.

There is a despairing sense of Groundhog Day about this situation, which continues to get worse despite Health Minister Mary Harney’s repeated assurances the crisis would be resolved by March.

In the jaundiced eyes of patients, hundreds of whom now spend sleepless days and nights on trollies in public corridors, her much-vaunted 10-point plan, which is gradually being implemented by the newly-formed Health Service Executive, is not worth the paper it is written on.

Because of ongoing failures to deliver on political promises, the image and ethos of the health service have been undermined to a serious degree.

In any country, the performance of accident and emergency services is the yardstick by which the health system is measured. For sick people in Ireland, however, and particularly the elderly, the A&E centre is no longer a place where they are likely to be cared for in comfort and safety.

Despite the tireless efforts of doctors and nurses struggling to cope with impossible conditions, the A&E unit has become a focal point of frustration, where overcrowding and discomfort are endemic. In this day and age it is intolerable that people have to sit on chairs or lie on trollies for hours and days because beds are not available.

So bad is the situation in some areas that patients have to ask visitors or other patients to keep an eye on their bed, chair or pillow for fear it will disappear when they go to the toilet or for a smoke.

The health portfolio is recognised as the Angolan minefield of ministerial careers and so the Tánaiste may yet rue taking on this difficult and thankless job. While there is no doubting the strength of her commitment and her determination to put things right, the outlook at this juncture is far from promising.

Conditions in many hospitals have been compared to a war zone. Worse than the chronic lack of space is the hygiene threat posed by blood-stained and vomit-tainted floors. The risk of an outbreak of the dreaded MRSA superbug is all too clear.

This appalling scenario is a damning indictment of a government which has been in power for more than seven years. Despite a blizzard of reports from former Health Minister Micheál Martin, and in spite of the millions of euro which Ms Harney is pouring into the system, neither the coalition nor the management of the service seem capable of resolving problems which during its time in office have recurred week in, week out in accident and emergency centres up and down the country.

Nurses feel so aggrieved they have embarked on a series of lunchtime demonstrations which began yesterday at hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Roscommon. This represents a direct challenge to the high-powered HSE group which has assumed responsibility for running the health service.

Daily bickering between nurses and the executive over the accuracy of estimates for the number of patients on trollies will solve nothing. And the jury is still out on whether the crisis will be eased as long-promised home-care packages aimed at freeing up hospital beds are delivered.

But in the interests of public health, it is absolutely crucial that the appalling level of overcrowding in A&E services be radically reduced.

Unless that happens soon, the protests will spread and the political fall-out for the coalition partners could be costly.