Ex-TD waited over a day on trolley

Former Labour TD Michael Bell was forced to spend 26 hours on a trolley in a crowded hospital A&E department because there…

Former Labour TD Michael Bell was forced to spend 26 hours on a trolley in a crowded hospital A&E department because there was no bed for him.

Mr Bell, who is in his 60s, spent over 35 years in politics before he lost his Dáil seat in 2002.

He had gone to see his GP in Drogheda on Tuesday because of an injury to his leg and an ambulance was called to take him from the doctor's surgery to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.

Last night Ms Paula Bell, his youngest daughter, said the conditions in the A&E department where she waited with him "were absolutely woeful".

READ MORE

He arrived in A&E at 1 p.m. and although he was seen to promptly by staff, whom she praised, he was then put on a trolley and left to wait in a cubicle.

There was a partition in the cubicle and another male patient was on a trolley in the other section of it, also waiting for a bed.

"My father was in a lot of discomfort and did not sleep at all during the night in that cubicle. There was noise coming from a nearby machine and over the lights there was dirt. The hospital really needs money put into it," she said.

The North Eastern Health Board confirmed that the former TD was one of 10 people who at lunchtime yesterday were on trolleys in the A&E department. Seven patients had been on trolleys overnight, but "it has been quite busy in A&E in the last 48 hours."

The chairman of the Drogheda branch of the Labour Party, Mr Joe Sheils, said, "it is a disgrace that anybody has to spend time on a trolley".