The number of patients on trolleys at University Hospital Galway’s emergency department rocketed by almost 60 per cent last year.
The figure contained in the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s trolley watch survey for 2011 is described as “dramatic” by the union which began keeping such records in 2004.
The study reveals that over the five year period 2006 to 2011 the numbers of people on trolleys at the west’s biggest hospital rose by almost 5,000.
There were 1,654 awaiting treatment in 2006, 2,414 in 2007 and 3,470 in 2008. That figure dropped to 3,444 in 2009 but rose again to 4,103 the following year and further increased to 6,544 last year.
There were 55 people waiting on trolleys at UHG on Tuesday and 50 on Wednesday of last week.
This is a “very, very serious situation”, says Regina Durcan, the INMO’s industrial relations officer in the west. She fears it will worsen with the retirement of a number of frontline staff next month who will not be replaced.
“Trolley numbers are at their worst, they have significantly increased. On Tuesday of last week there were 55 patients on trolleys, probably the highest number ever recorded. Traditionally more patients come in during the winter months,” she says.
“Having patients on trolleys is a deplorable condition for patients and staff. While patients are being moved from the emergency department to clinical ward areas they are going into already full wards therefore creating an overcrowding problem. People have a right to be cared for in a bed in a clinical environment which is not overcrowded.”
With 17 beds closed at the regional hospital, she says her organisation has serious concerns. “We are coming to a point now where the Minister and the public need to review the health cuts and their impact on the delivery of service. We have had four years of budget cuts. The large numbers of nurses retiring - who had massive skills and expertise -at the end of February are not being replaced because of the moratorium on recruitment. I can forsee there may be a need to close further beds [because of this].
‘Beds cannot be opened if there are no people to staff them.’
“We can’t confirm the figures retiring in Galway yet but I’d imagine there will be large numbers leaving. It will be impossible to deliver services without these nurses being replaced. Beds cannot be opened if there are no people to staff them. This is a vicious circle which is not going to get better. With the cutbacks I can’t see how else we will be able to manage without staff and funding.”
Describing the recruitment ban as a “blunt instrument” Ms Durcan is calling on the Minister for Health to lift it, especially in relation to frontline positions, such as nursing.
“The embargo does not look at the filling of essential posts in order to deliver a safe standard of care. UHG is the main hospital re specialities and people have a right to be treated with respect, dignity and an ability to access the service they need.”
Meanwhile Cllr Padraig Conneely, the chairperson of the HSE West’s regional health forum, has called on the Minister for Health to take the “shackles” off UHG because public patients are “hurting badly”.
The Fine Gael city councillor claims UHG is in a “bad place” and he can no longer tolerate people’s daily pain and suffering.
“I witness this on a daily basis and the stories I hear are more horrific every day,” he says. “It is horrifying that people are sitting in their homes today all over Co Galway and the west in pain and suffering. Their spirit is being broken and they feel the system has failed them. And it has.”
The former city mayor says he has served as a member and chairperson of the HSE’s regional forum for the past six years and he can no longer “stand idly by”.
‘The new chief executive is starting with one hand tied behind his back.’
He warns that people on waiting lists for years will die without ever being called for an appointment or assessment at UHG.
“This is breaking the spirit of people who have given a lifetime to the country and they now feel abandoned by the health system.”
He highlights the case of a public patient with a shoulder injury who was told he would have to wait a year for an MRI scan. “That man can’t put his arm past his chest. His is one of the calls I get from desperate people.”
Now that a new chief executive and [additional] management have been appointed to the city hospital Minister Reilly must show flexibility on the staff recruitment ban, he believes.
“The hospital should be allowed to make a new start. The new chief executive is starting with one hand tied behind his back and only flexibility in budgets and staff can correct the errors of the past.
“UHG is an excellent hospital and with consultants and nursing staff given a new lead from management it can get back to what it does best, give a public health service.
“A radical change is now needed at UHG and it behoves all of us to ensure this will happen in 2012.”
