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'People are dying': Life-saving surgeries delayed or cancelled due to intensive care bed shortage

Minister of State Jim Daly said increasing ICU capacity is a priority for the government in 2018.

ONE OF THE Department of Health’s junior ministers has said the government acknowledges there are capacity deficits in intensive care units across the country and increasing bed numbers is a priority for this year.

Minister of State Jim Daly was speaking in the Seanad yesterday in response to strong comments from Fianna Fáil senators and GP Keith Swanick who told him “people are dying” because of this shortage.

Swanick referred to an article in the Sunday Business Post two weeks ago, which reported that life support was being “rationed” and the doctors were being forced to prioritise some critically ill patients over others.

He said the absence of post-op beds means life-saving surgeries are delayed or in some cases cancelled.

Swanick told the minister that doctors routinely have to break the news to families that their loved one’s likelihood of survival is slim.

“I never thought one of the reasons might be that an ICU bed is not available.”

The failure to provide emergency surgeries for this reason is “nothing short of a national scandal”, he said, pointing out that this issue had been highlighted for the HSE as far back as 2009.

FullSizeR Senator Swanick said the shortage of ICU beds is a national scandal.

“It directly impacts on serious elective surgery, such as cancer, or elevating a seriously ill patient, for example with pneumonia, from a medical ward into ICU,” he explained.

Though he acknowledged it was a “very serious thing to say”, he told Daly: “People are dying as a result of the absence of ICU beds.”

Daly responded that the government “fully accepts” that there is an issue with critical care capacity in hospitals across the country.

He said the 2018 service plan identifies an increase in these beds as a priority for the year, particularly the opening of additional high dependence and critical care beds in Cork University Hospital and the Mater Hospital in Dublin.

Read: ‘It should be nipped in the bud’: UK hospitals ‘aggressively recruiting’ Irish nurses>

Read: ‘It’s a wake-up call’: 73 children on trolleys in emergency depts so far this year>

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    Mute FacelessJuniorDoctor
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    Aug 8th 2020, 7:57 AM

    We have some of the least doctors per capita in the EU but despite this many of the doctors who came back from Australia to help are going back again because they weren’t offered permanent positions! Back to the status quo of dangerous understaffing & mammoth waiting lists it is….

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    Mute Joe
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:06 AM

    @FacelessJuniorDoctor: and one of the youngest populations!

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    Mute Jonathan Regan
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:14 AM

    @FacelessJuniorDoctor: Scheme/permanent jobs are highly competitive here. Hardly fair to give these automatically to people who came back from Oz over those who’ve worked here for years.

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    Mute Aaron O'Leary
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:15 AM

    @Jonathan Regan: We literally asked them to come home and promised them jobs..

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    Mute Jonathan Regan
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:23 AM

    @Aaron O’Leary: didn’t promise them Scheme/permanent jobs which seems to be insinuated by OP.

    23
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    Mute Aaron O'Leary
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:26 AM

    @Jonathan Regan: ah fair. However Harris did mention permanent contracts when he put out the message and in fairness they didn’t even get part time work. It was a joke, it’s embarrassing really. Remember cringing when I saw the ad for it thinking “how’s this clown gonna mess this one up now”

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    Mute FacelessJuniorDoctor
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    Aug 8th 2020, 10:50 AM

    @Jonathan Regan: take your point. But as you know none of us have permanent jobs – they could have given them a non scheme year. Taken the opportunity to grow the workforce when it was actually there and time to plan for the expanded numbers next year.

    20
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    Mute Dave Harris
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    Aug 8th 2020, 12:16 PM

    @Aaron O’Leary: Many people think Harris did a good job because he repeated what the medical experts said and he put on his concerned smacked bottom face. This is another example of his ineptitude

    21
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    Mute Ciara Ní Mhurchú
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    Aug 8th 2020, 5:38 PM

    @Dave Harris: You have a problem with Harris because he listened to medical experts regarding a medical pandemic!?

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    Mute Sinead Ni Coscraigh
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    Aug 8th 2020, 8:12 AM

    They left because there was no work for them, we got into bother put out a call for them to come HOME and help us !!! They answered that call and rushed home to help us. And now we are telling them that we dont want them anymore so they can go away again !!! What kind of way is this to treat our own ?? Shame on us for allowing our government to treat our brothers,sisters,sons,daughters,friends and fellow citizens like this !!!

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    Mute Joe
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:08 AM

    @Sinead Ni Coscraigh: so you want to give them jobs just for the sake of it. Our hospitals are currently functioning way under their capacity as everything has been cancelled and people aren’t presenting.
    If the government gave them jobs you’d be moaning about the waste of resources.

    33
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    Mute Aaron O'Leary
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:17 AM

    @Joe: our government quite shamelessly begged them to come home and promised the jobs

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    Mute Ash Jordi
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:25 AM

    @Joe: The government implored Irish medical staff to come home as an act of patriotism and many upped sticks and came leaving their jobs behind. Now they are jobless and unable to receive any welfare payments from the state that asked them home. It’s an absolute shame to treat our citizens who answered the call in this way

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    Mute Aaron O'Leary
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:28 AM

    @Ash Jordi: don’t bother it’s another FGFF spin bot

    23
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    Mute NotaWarder
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    Aug 8th 2020, 10:15 AM

    @Ash Jordi: they seemed to think that covid had been beaten and were able to proceed with forming a government and getting on with their merry lives.
    This will come back to bite them when the second wave hits.

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    Mute Rory J Leonard
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    Aug 8th 2020, 10:34 AM

    @Ash Jordi:

    These trusting, naive medical professionals must learn for this harsh experience and in future demand a zoom interview from Oz with potential employers in their homeland and a signed contract if successful, before they hand in their notice to local caring employers.

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    Mute Aidan O' Neill
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    Aug 8th 2020, 8:07 AM

    Least amount if doctors but highest spend per capita on the health service. All that money going to overpaid pen pushers.

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    Mute Jane
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:02 AM

    @Aidan O’ Neill: you’re not allowed to say that. You are not allowed to question the hold the public service unions have in this country.

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    Mute Donal Desmond
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:27 AM

    @Jane: Unfortunately the unions have been far too lax especially during the leadership of Begg and O’Connor. Where did all the patients on trolleys go when the pandemic struck… According to Harris there was no money… The same Harris who threatened striking nurses with fines if they did not return to work…again no money…Hypocrisy at it’s best.

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    Mute Micheal S. O' Ceilleachair
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    Aug 8th 2020, 8:42 AM

    It’s the Applaud and Abandon method. Even the Applaud bit is now gone. Why would nurses make themselves available in such circumstances?

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    Mute AOL
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    Aug 8th 2020, 8:16 AM

    A disgrace

    70
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    Mute Michael Patrick Newell
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:59 AM

    Wish we could drive some of the over paid hse management and paper pushers out of the country like we do doctor’s and nurses

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    Mute Paul
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    Aug 8th 2020, 8:35 AM

    The mind boggles

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    Mute Seeking Truth
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:27 AM

    There are many highly qualified non-Irish doctors in this country who cannot get registered with the HSE, are not allowed to take on medical card patients and are paid half the fees of registered GP’s for working SouthDoc. Yet GP’s around the country are suffering greatly and SouthDoc is becoming a “regular clinic” for those who cannot become a new patient at a regular GP and has no capacity for real after-hours issues.
    These non-Irish doctors need to be recognised and registered by the HSE and a huge problem could be solved!

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    Mute Maria Quinn
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:47 AM

    @Seeking Truth: true, non EU qualifications and non evidence of minimum level of English require to perform the job.
    These people are in the process to sit English exams and then the access to the course to level prior learning/ qualifications. They only could step in as volunteers … Are any data about this?

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    Mute Ciara Ní Mhurchú
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    Aug 8th 2020, 5:42 PM

    @Seeking Truth: So employ doctors who do not speak the language and whose qualifications are not up to the same standards as our own?

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    Mute Alan James Dunne
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    Aug 8th 2020, 11:48 AM

    Spoke with a friend last night who reregistered as a nurse as she felt obliged to help out with her experience. She worked between two of Dublins main hospitals for 6 weeks. After initially being told she would only be charged €100 to reregister she was actually charged the full €350 fee.
    Ended up teaching on how to use ventilators but had to supply her own PPE as it was non exsistent.

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    Mute John John
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:29 AM

    It’s a scamdemic

    27
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    Mute Thornto84
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    Aug 8th 2020, 8:32 AM

    Not a chance this government will do something like that, it seems like it’s easier to blame the Irish people for everything during this and we are bigger fools for going along with it and arguing among ourselves about masks and everything else Covid related

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    Mute Eamonn Tierney
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    Aug 8th 2020, 1:22 PM

    This issue is not making headlines at the moment with Covid 19 but will in the near future where those in “the pool” will be desperately needed on the frontline again

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    Mute Maria Quinn
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    Aug 8th 2020, 9:35 AM

    Yes, that recruitment campaign was a bit weird. PAS had three panels formed for adminstrative positions, Executive and Clerical. The temporary clerks panel was formed in January. You would have thought the Government would have taken people from this panel to assist the HSE but they didn’t. Then the government shutdown most of the departments’ services and redeployed the staff to assist the Welfare to process the PUPs. This is a task of HR and Accounts teams.

    So three large recruitment with people ready to work were paralyzed. People were “laid off” before starting, date of commencement delayed, they said but without any provision. Three – five months sitting in home; with lose from income of about €1000 per month; and the uncertainty, the jobs in Public Services are the first cut for paying off all the pandemic allowance to employees, employers and businesses
    And then the departments began to have time for their people, and began to call the people with date of commencement delayed …. it came an unfairness, people with lower score, below in the panel list, behind others … commenced to work earlier, gain full salary earlier, only for being assigned to one department and not to another

    Hopefully lessons will be learnt from this emergency. The Public Services was ready for this unprecedented emergency but the politicians failed …. as usual their perception of the public service staff is like – I take the money for the pups from the wages of my people-

    8
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