Rich economy yet patients wait on trolleys

IN recent weeks, accompanied by a doctor friend, I visited some hospital A&E departments in Dublin and Cork, where overcrowding and other related problems disturbed and saddened me.

Sick people lying for days on trolleys in an accident and emergency department are stripped of their dignity. They are powerless. They have no privacy and no peace of mind. Sometimes they need to use a bed pan. Sometimes they vomit. It is a distressing, humiliating experience.

In many cases, for an elderly person, lying on a trolley in a hospital corridor is the culmination of a process of attrition, over months or even years of waiting to have the hospital procedure they need and have been denied because, inevitably, as their health deteriorates, they often end up as another emergency case, they are still forced to wait on a trolley, simply to get a bed.