Patients on trolleys and HIQA

Sir, – On Tuesday in the Dáil during Leaders’ Questions the issue of the ongoing and seemingly intractable and appalling numbers of patients on trolleys in our hospitals was again raised. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams read the following into the record of the Dáil. “What did HIQA say in 2012 about this issue of what the Taoiseach calls ‘trolley waits’? It recommended that ‘every hospital should cease the use of any inappropriate space (for example, a hospital corridor or a parking area for trolleys) to accommodate patients receiving clinical care’.”

This quote was from the HIQA report 2012 into the death of a patient on a trolley in the emergency department in Tallaght Hospital and outlines one of the HIQA recommendations.

Mr Adams then went on to say, “The special delivery unit has developed a standardised definition of an inappropriate space, and accommodation of patients in inappropriate spaces is monitored by both the HSE and the IMNO.”

It is disturbing that the findings of one State agency, tasked with patient safety issues, can be apparently so sidelined by the department it is supposed to scrutinise. It is equally disturbing that HIQA have made no comment on the numbers of patients on trolleys since 2012. As a patient advocate I can only presume it is a case of another report commissioned and its findings ignored. – Yours, etc, TRIONA MURPHY, Chairperson, Tallaght Hospital Action Group, Dublin 24.