Sir, – I was more than a little discombobulated on March 20th, as I listened to a radio report that Minister for Health Dr James Reilly claimed the number of patients awaiting a hospital bed from an emergency room trolley had dropped significantly. Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation was claiming that there were 400 patients waiting on trolleys in A&E departments across the country that day. The main reason for my confusion concerning the Minister’s claims was that at the time, I was lying on a trolley in a corridor of St Vincent’s University Hospital Emergency Department, waiting for a bed in a ward.
Having been admitted that morning, I was repeatedly told the chances of my getting a bed that night were all but nil, as the medical, nursing, carers and support staff coped admirably under the circumstances, with a seemingly never- ending influx of patients. One of the administrative staff came to me later in the evening and asked if I had health insurance. When I answered affirmatively, she asked I sign some forms as, if a bed became available in a semi-private room, someone with health insurance might have a better chance of admission. Sure enough, at 2am I was brought up to a bed, where I spent the next five days, being treated with great care and sensitivity by the wonderful nurses and doctors of St Laurence’s ward.
These frontline medical staff come in before their shifts start, stay after their shifts end, and give every patient the same dedicated attention, treat their charges with precise professionalism, and yet have the emotional and psychological support for those patients, especially the elderly, who are distressed and confused about their circumstances. All for considerably less money than they earned five or six years ago. Now, with Croke Park II breathing down their necks, they face even further cuts.
That the Minister would trumpet the “success” at reducing the numbers waiting on hospital trolleys from his bully pulpit, when clearly the experience on the ground is telling another story, is simply rubbing the noses of our frontline services staff in it.
His approach to managing his brief seem to me to take no heed of the needs of those who are served by the public health system, or those who have to manage it. We all appreciate that significant cost savings have to be made in public spending, and that it is not going to be easy. But to whistle “Every little thing is going to be alright” past the graveyard, is counterproductive and insulting to the medical teams on the frontline. – Yours, etc,
DAVID WILKINS,
Vevay Road,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.