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A 5.30PM DOCTOR’S appointment in a small town in Tipperary on a Monday evening is where the first dreaded mention of the word ‘hospital’ is heard. For my 10-year-old sister the word hospital is not terrifying in itself but rather the associations that go with it – and not the ones you might think. It is the fear of the long wait in the emergency department in Limerick whilst in considerable pain.
So we head home to pack an overnight bag for a case of suspected appendicitis and know that there is indeed a long wait ahead of us. At 6.30pm and we arrive at the emergency department to a room full of sick and injured people. The waiting time? An hour and a half before being called to triage, after which we are returned to the waiting room. In the words of Jack Johnson we are sitting, waiting, wishing that when the doors open again her name will be called.
The time is now creeping ever closer to 9pm and the pain is only getting worse. So we approach the nurse as soon as the electronic door swings open to ask for some pain relief only to miss our chance as the door swings shut after one of our comrades from the waiting room slips through. At 10.30 pm the waiting room is filling up, and it seems fewer and fewer people are being called through those doors. Every time a nurse does appear, they are accosted by family members or patients from the waiting room asking about how far down the list they are. “It will be at least a couple of hours yet” is the standard reply.
11pm and the pain has reached crisis point so, again, we make an attempt to catch the attention of a nurse who thankfully calls us through the doors. At least she is given a bed on which to wait for the doctor. The scene behind those doors is one of controlled chaos. There are people on trolleys at every turn. Everyone is waiting news from a doctor on whether they will be admitted or sent home. For my sister it takes a total of six hours before she has been seen by a doctor and given any kind of pain relief. At 12.30pm, with a diagnosis that isn’t appendicitis, we are free to leave.
Six hours is a reasonable wait compared to what some people faced that evening. However this is a clear demonstration, not that we need it, of how bad the situation in Irish hospitals is. The staff members dealing with the sheer number of people each evening do a very good job, but everyone has limits. You can’t expect to run a packed department with the bare minimum of staff when the potential of those you do have is already stretched to the limit.
There are already deterrents in place to stop people from abusing the emergency department service such as a €100 charge if you haven’t been referred. It is arguable that such waiting times are also an added deterrent – if you are willing to wait six hours to be seen by a doctor then you must indeed be ill or injured.
The question is: do the people who find themselves stranded in that waiting room not deserve better than the health system is willing to give? You can tell me that it is all about resources, cut backs and the recession, but what if it goes back to a more fundamental level of systematic management?
Emergency departments are so busy that 6/7 hours wait is standard practice. Clearly there are too many patients for the staff to handle. So hire more staff, but the counter argument to that is the HSE can’t afford to pay more staff. Why? Because there is some other part of the budget that is being used for much more urgent services. Which leads to the question: is an emergency department not an urgent service?
Vicious cycle isn’t it? But who am I to complain? I can hear the rhetoric already…
“Everyone is doing the best they can with what they’ve got.”
Aren’t we all?
“Every hospital is understaffed and under resourced”
That’s evident.
“You’re lucky you have access to an emergency department at all!”
Lucky? Surely it’s a basic enough requirement to have an emergency department?
From a cynical point of view, it makes you wonder if the Irish public matter a damn to those who have any kind of control or say in the development and improvement of the health system. Yes, money doesn’t grow on trees but what we need (in addition to cash) are innovative solutions to the increasingly dangerous and frustrating problem that is overburdened emergency departments.
Lauren Joslin is a 21-year-old Law student at the University of Limerick.
Follow Opinion & Insight on Twitter: @TJ_Opinions
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So, have the government started stealing your babies yet, or were Waters, Quinn and O’Brien wrong again?
Course they were wrong, sure any sane person knew they were talking out their backsides
No they are too busy enforcing the mandatory abortions from the abortion legislation to get around to stealing the babies
The legislation hasn’t been put in place yet. The referendum was passed but nothing in the constitution has changed yet.
To be fair, the anti-referendum campaign could also ask whether the Irish state’s protection of children has improved. A third alternative is that it was a big pointless vanity project.
Can we insist on the High Court awarding costs against this petitioner as this was a gross insult to jurisprudence as the woman produced no evidence to support her claim.
Read the article again Richie and you might understand it. Are you suggesting that only those with a 100% chance of winning their case should approach the courts? Sounds very elitist to me an attempt to limit peoples rights to avail of court services.
Whistleblowing will be the problem.
Remind me, did the govt ministers who sanctioned the ultra vires booklet pay the costs in the mccrystal case or pay back the public money wasted on the booklet?
What an absolute waste of court time, the judge should have jailed her for contempt.
Oh yes of course because she is wrong? The yes vote was pushed more then the no vote and the government don’t give a dame children in Ireland don’t have a voice and never ever will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I0OiNdj2aP4 , “There is no system ever devised by mankind that is guaranteed to rip husband and wife or father, mother and child apart so bitterly than our present Family Court System.” Judge Brian Lindsay, Retired Supreme Court Judge
Oh Rosemary!
So onto the Supreme Court?
Doesn’t seem justice was servered as supreme court had previously ruled the campaign was baised and unfair.
The High Court appear to say any referendum campain run by the Government of the day can indeed be biast and unfair as long as being biast and unfair does not have an affect on the result. This appears to overule the McKenna judgment.
However the Supreme Court says the Government campin on the childrens referendum was biast and unfair but did not make a judgment on if being biast and unfair had an affect on the result.
So I guess we will never know unless this decision is appealed to the Supreme Court.
More to the point when are FG and labour going to pay back the €2 million of tax payers money they misused during the referendum?
Kerry
I think you may find that the Government cannot be equated to a Political Party or Parties in terms of any errors it may have committed in their day to day roles. On the basis of your logic we should also ask the Roman Catholic Church for a contribution as well since most of the Members of Government were also of that faith and sure why not include the GAA while we’re at it!
Given that the above is apparently good legal advice will you now give it a rest Kerry?
2 government parties were found to have misused Irish tax payers money in a referendum. I tell you what Richie when they pay that money back I’ll give it a rest. How about a bit of accountability from Enda and Eamon?
Tom is quite right, the government are in the wrong-they always are!
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