Letters

Emergency departments in crisis

What will it take for Government and HSE to act?

Wed Jun 01 2022 - 00:11

Sir, – The Government (from the Taoiseach down) has rightly berated DAA for its abysmal performance which has seen lots of travellers discommoded and enduring long delays at Dublin Airport.

Although undoubtedly a source of intense frustration, no one has died.

The good news is that we are led to believe that Ministers and senior officials will meet DAA officials daily until the chaos has been resolved.

Contrast this with the attitude to emergency department crowding and the very long and worsening waits for emergency healthcare.

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Add to this the extraordinary waits many sick and particularly sick elderly patients have to endure languishing on emergency department trolleys before they get a hospital bed, paralysing the functioning of the emergency departments and adding further to delays.

This awful experience for patients and staff alike has been getting worse month-on-month for a decade and, more crucially, is actually costing lives.

There is clear evidence of harm (excess deaths) resulting both from emergency department crowding and also prolonged waits for hospital admission – both of which are now the norm in Ireland’s acute hospital system.

Sadly no one in authority seems to be moved, even in the slightest, by this undoubted loss of life, the adverse outcomes for patients or the accelerating haemorrhage of medical and nursing staff from emergency departments that the years of political and health service management failure to meaningfully address has triggered.

Is anyone seriously suggesting that the country has got its priorities in the correct order? – Yours, etc,

Dr FERGAL HICKEY,

President,

Irish Association

for Emergency Medicine,

Consultant in

Emergency Medicine,

Sligo University Hospital,

Sligo.