Sir, – David Raleigh writes about the inhumanity of patients dying on hospital trolleys in University Hospital Limerick (“‘He had no privacy, no dignity’: Life and death at University Hospital Limerick”, News, June 17th).
Each year over 40 per cent of deaths in Ireland occur in the acute hospital setting. This means death, dying and bereavement should be an essential part of a hospital’s function.
No one should die alone, in pain or in undignified settings such as on a trolley on a hospital corridor. To hear these dreadful sorties – lack of privacy, TVs blaring in the background and staff not supported to be able to provide compassionate care for end-of-life is simply not acceptable in a modern society.
It is always distressing for families when a loved one dies. Even more so when death takes place in on a trolley in hospital amid overcrowded surroundings. The importance of dying with dignity cannot be overestimated. It is acknowledged that when a person dies having received care and compassion in their final days and hours that it can help the grieving family left behind, knowing that their loved received the expert care and attention they needed.
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We know what needs to be done. For over 17 years, the Irish Hospice Foundation has been working with HSE to develop and expand its national Hospice Friendly Hospitals programme which uses an agreed set of standards to ensure end-of-life care is central to the mission of the hospital and is organised around the needs of patients.
All of this work has seen positive changes.
However, this isn’t enough if the staff are demoralised due to levels of staffing, if the overcrowding starts at the entry level to the hospital and if care of the dying and the bereaved is not prioritised by the hospital management.
Every death matters and we have only one chance to get it right. It is well past time for hospitals to get this aspect of care right. – Yours, etc,
SHARON FOLEY,
CEO,
Irish Hospice Foundation,
Dublin 2.