As more than 150 patients were being accommodated on trolleys in accident and emergency departments of hospitals in the Eastern region yesterday, it emerged that one patient who left a trolley to use the toilet found it taken by another patient on his return. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports
The incident, at Tallaght Hospital in Dublin, has been the subject of a formal complaint from the 48-year-old patient who spent three days in the hospital's A&E department being treated for a heart condition.
The patient, who did not wish to be named, told The Irish Times that he was in a cubicle in the A&E department with a curtain around him when he left briefly to use the toilet.
"When I came back a nurse was stripping my trolley for another patient. She gave me my top and my oxygen and told me to find a trolley on the corridor," he said. "I didn't know what trolley to get on to. I walked down along the corridor and there were a few empty ones. I ended up at the end of the corridor," he added.
"When I finally got a bed on the third day I was only in it about 45 minutes when the heart team discharged me".
The patient praised the A&E staff who he said were working under very difficult conditions. He said he blamed the Government "for not putting enough money into beds".
His experience highlights the ongoing problems in A&E departments, where patients regularly have to spend days on trolleys due to a shortage of beds. The Government accepts an extra 3,000 beds are required.
The Irish Nurses' Organisation said there were 154 patients on trolleys in eight hospitals in the east yesterday morning. This morning A&E nurses at Naas General Hospital will begin working under protest to highlight the "appalling" overcrowding in their unit.
Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha, INO industrial relations officer, said more than 30 patients - the equivalent of a full ward of patients - were constantly having to be looked after in the hospital's A&E unit, in addition to emergencies.
The South Western Area Health Board, which runs the hospital, said it was very conscious that activity levels at the hospital's A&E continue to be high and it planned to recruit extra staff.
Mr Séan Crowe, the Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South West, who was contacted by the Tallaght patient last night, challenged the Minister for Health to outline what steps he was going to take to address the "utter bedlam" for staff and patients in A&E.
A spokeswoman for Tallaght Hospital said she could not comment on individual cases, but confirmed the incident was being investigated.