Everytime I hear an ambulance, my ears prick up. Part of this is conditioning as a young hack. A squealing ambulance equalled a story. Flashing fire brigade equalled a story. A speeding Garda car equalled a story. Where haste and emergency vehicles came together, it was the cue for my journalistic curiosity and desire to make a few quid with a few paras that kicked in. Now, when I hear the same things, I think I’m more likely to be in one of them than chasing one.
Recently, when I hear an ambulance or see the blue light in the rear view mirror, I wince a little. Mainly because during my little dalliance with mortality last year, I ended up in one making its way through city traffic to UHG where I spent the guts of two days in A&E.
Few people plan to visit A&E. It’s not a place you schedule an appointment for. By its nature it is an environment into which you are thrust without much warning, in a state of confusion and illness and dependency. Here, any notions you may have about your own worth are handed over at the door to those who are entrusted with your care, in my case, the excellent nurse Michelle Murphy.
It is a place where you are at your most vulnerable, where you are either ill yourself, or you are striving to advocate for the sick child or sick pensioner. Where you realise that health is the great equaliser, and here in A&E, your fate depends on the care and competence of others.
Because of that it should be extra welcoming, extra warming, extra caring. Alas, the built environment of our A&E is not. The professionalism and dedication of the staff is unquestioned, but this is strained daily by the lack of an environment in which this care can flourish, where competency will ensure your health is tended to. Health is such a fickle thing, and the progress of hospitalisation should depend in the main on the care we get, not on the lack of a proper facility in which to get that care.
Yesterday in the Dail, the woes of our A&E department were laid bare again before the nation, when An Taoiseach said into the record that our A&E is not fit for purpose, and that if he had his way it would be knocked in the morning and replaced with something new and modern and suitable.
Over the next 10 weeks, we are going to hear a lot of talk from those asking us to vote them into a position where they will earn a half a million euro over the next five years. We will hear tonnes of rhetoric based on varying perceptions of how they will strive to change things, to make a difference, to fight for the common man and woman, to make the country a better place. But there is something profoundly disturbing about hearing our country’s leader refer to Galway’s A&E as a place not fit for purpose…. and still not be in a position to do anything about it.
When we hear an ambulance and we silently offer a prayer for those inside, we ought not be worried about the environment into which they are going, a place where they will get good care, but a care that will be hampered by the restrictions of space and comfort and resources.
It is to be hoped that the words we heard from the Taoiseach are followed through, so that when we are all at our most vulnerable, our chances of recovery will be based on excellent care and not result in the lack of dignity visited upon those who lie waiting in corridors.
