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A CORK CITY hospital is asking patients to stay away from its emergency department because it’s too busy right now.
A spokesperson for Mercy University Hospital says that the hospital is dealing with a “surge in patients” at its emergency department and that people needing les urgent treatment should seek care elsewhere.
“Patients with less urgent complaints are advised to contact their GPs or South Doc, in the first instance, or avail of services at the Mercy Urgent Care Centre,” the spokesperson said.
Escalation procedures have been put in place to deal with the amount of patients presenting to the hospital with numbers described as “exceptionally high”.
The department remains open but patients who do attend are likely to experience long delays.
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Simon Harris is going to solve the healthcare crisis by simply telling people to stop getting sick.
It’s genius, I don’t know why someone hasn’t thought of it before now.
You can be sure that most of these people showing up at A and E are not in fact emergencies and should be going to their GP
Can I be sure of that? Where is the data on patients presenting to A&E to support it?
Some are sent in by their GP.
Gps can’t do X-rays or put casts on broken bones.
Spot on. People would prefer to clog up the emergency departments rather than spend 50 euro at their GP. I have a relative who works in an emergency department and they it’s full of people who shouldn’t be there. They are also a lot of “frequent fliers” people who attend multiple times a year with minor issues.
I know that Lily, those aren’t the people I mean. I know people who have gone to A and E with sore throat, with vomiting kids (no other symptom) etc.
You are right plus most.of them have free a&e with their medical cards. If like me they had to pay E100 it would a different story.
If he told the HSE staff stop ringing in sick there’d be no crisis
A very wealthy country with a third world health services ……sad
Meanwhile in Government buildings, FF, FG, Labour and some independents vote for a pay increase!
Knowing the HSE, they will probably hire a few new administrators to look into how to solve the problem.
66 waiting for beds in wards in Limerick last week. Trolleys everywhere. Shutting down smaller A&Es has a price.
Cork and elsewhere waiting on trolleys. This government could not
care less
“Ladies and gentleman would you mind kindly dying somewhere else, thank you”
‘and please stop blocking beds or we’ll have you removed – with reasonable force of course’
Anyone who’s had the misfortune to end up in their A and E department will know exactly how bad it is. Feel sorry for the staff who have to work there..
Apparently, the ‘recovery’ is going great, everywhere except in hospitals though.
4.7 million people in this country and we are spending over 14 BILLION on our health service. If it was treated as a private industry the red tape and beuocracy might dissappear
@the dub: Think they want the public system to fail utterly.
Private Healthcare will then be the only option, Bupa, VHI an Laya shouldnt exist in this country if we had a decent Healthcare System in the first place.
(look at the Bin Company and Irish Water mess!)
Two tier System suits so many who make vast profits off the ill.
God what a Banana Republic we live in.
As long as people treat A&E dept as their GPs the situation will remain as it is now and will not improve. There is limited amount of doctors in Emergency Dept. and beds in the hospital so it is going to be filled up quickly if people keep coming to A&Es with not life threatening symptoms just because they have no common sense of what to do. I do understand that they need to pay at least 50€ at GP and it’s free in A&E. I’m not saying that the health system in Ireland works fine, it doesn’t, but knowing that, people should use more common sense where to show up if they are in need.
Isn’t there is a €100 charge for anyone who presents at A&E without referral and who isn’t kept as an in-patient.
Unless you have a medical card, but people with medical cards don’t have to pay for either their GP or the Hospital, so why would they choose to sit in and A&E for hours?
@Eyepopper: I think there is a charge in A&E but you don’t have to pay straigh. Hospitals usually send an invoice prior to the payment. People prefer this than spending 50€ straight at GPs.
People prefer to pay twice as much and spend hours sat in A&E because they would rather pay a €100 invoice than a €50 charge straight away?
I find that pretty hard to believe.
It’s just easier to go to the hospital, esp Friday night and weekend rather than waiting for GPS visit. This is, what at least, I keep listening to.
A lot of people simply don’t pay the charge also which is a disgrace.
Exactly, they’re getting the invoice and simply ignoring it or calling the hospital that they won’t pay for different reasons. The hospital then cancels it or it take too long to solve the problem that the case just forgotten
That has been going on for years the reason you don’t hear it is our government are to busy telling themselves that we are the best little Country in the world and if you sit in the Dail long enough and listen to it everyday you begin to believe it.
Since Colarado legalised cannibis . Hospital addmissions down22 percent.. that’s a fact
Where is the evidence for this? Association does not imply causation.
@Upowthat Burke that maybe but road deaths are way up. I know which I would prefer.
And the leaders in today’s Trolley watch stakes each have 35 on trolleys. Check it out before you report to your local ED. It’s on the INMO website. Avoid long delays..go sick in someone else’s hospital!
What are the sick people supposed to do if hospitals are turning them down?
We were shoehorned into the 21st Century by the Celtic Tiger and now that the beast is dead and gone, we feckin
cant afford the 21st Century. Perhaps we should have a removal and burial for the Celtic Tiger so that we can get
back to the 1990′s where we left off and chalk-up the Celtic Tiger as a tragic misadventure………RIP.
Its a great idea, people culture of entitlement when they get sick You should only go to hospital when you are not too bad. Very sick people should go direct to the funeral home
The Government should sell out An Coilte freeing this land back to agriculture, The proceeds should then be invested
in public health to guarantee an ongoing/sustainable system. This would have the extra benefit of improving our
agricultural output.
Furthermore, medical students who elect to have a State sponsored education should be required to work within
our Hospital system for at least 10 years* rather than hopping on a plane to work in Australia, USA or the highest
bidder leaving the Irish taxpaying working class sick on trolleys hoping for medical attention by a Third World
medico.
* The Poms are considering such a scheme.
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