REACTION:EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT consultants have said that although the situation at Tallaght hospital had "markedly improved"overcrowding remained "a daily risk to patient safety" in other hospitals, a problem made worse in recent months by bed closures.
The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine said consultants in emergency medicine had expressed their concerns to the Health Information and Quality Authority about boarding patients on trolleys in an open corridor beside the emergency department.
“These concerns, and the many steps taken by consultants in emergency medicine in their fruitless attempts to have these concerns acted upon by hospital management, were revealed at the coroner’s inquests that followed the tragic deaths of two admitted patients who were boarded on a corridor in the emergency department,” the association said.
It added that it was “striking” that when the authority issued its edict to the new hospital chief executive last August to stop holding patients in corridors, the hospital immediately ceased the practice.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation called for the reopening of 1,300 acute hospital beds to eliminate the situation whereby patients were left on trolleys in corridors. It said it had campaigned since late 2004 on the issue, and that all closed beds should be opened and fully staffed.
The Health Service Executive said the report into governance and patient safety issues at Tallaght hospital would make “an important contribution” to the extensive programme of change under way in the health service.
Dr Philip Crowley, national director for quality and patient safety with the executive, said the recommendations came at a time of considerable change and reform in the health system.
The HSE noted the report had acknowledged the many improvements that had taken place at Tallaght hospital.
Fianna Fáil called on the Government to ensure all necessary resources were made available to hospitals to ensure patient safety was not compromised.
Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said the report was “an indictment of the management and resourcing of hospital services because of the failures of successive governments”.
Labour TD for Dublin South West Eamonn Maloney said the recommendations would benefit Tallaght and all acute hospitals nationally.