Woman who waited 12 hours for emergency surgery described Galway hospital as ‘warzone’

A woman who waited 12 hours before she underwent emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy sometimes cannot believe she is still alive after her “warzone” experience in University Hospital Galway, the Dáil was told.

Sinn Féin TD Mairéad Farrell raised the case of “Niamh” as she warned “in the last three years the overcrowding alert was activated more times than any other hospital”.

She said that Niamh presented at the overcrowded emergency department (ED) with intense stomach pain, waiting over an hour to be triaged and five hours before she finally saw a doctor and another seven hours before she had emergency surgery. The incident happened last month.

“She felt the doctor was so rushed that he wasn’t taking in what she was saying,” returning afterwards to the “warzone” waiting area. She provided a urine sample when she was asked to leave on a counter for collection but it was still there two hours later.

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When eventually the results came back they showed elevated white cells and a suspected infection and she was prescribed an antibiotic and a pain drug. “As it was being administered, the nurse came rushing back in panic and shouted, ‘you are pregnant. You can’t be on this painkiller when you’re pregnant.’

Ms Farrell said panic followed about how much she had been given before seven hours after she arrived she was referred to a gynaecologist. “It was only then that the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy was raised.”

Niamh needed an emergency scan but she only got that more than eight hours after arriving. “The scan showed nothing but blood in her uterus and Niamh’s emergency surgery wouldn’t happen until 6:45pm, 12 hours after she first presented.” The surgery took three hours and not the planned 1.5 hours because of significant internal bleeding.

“Sometimes Niamh can’t believe she survived,” the Galway West TD said. “She kept thinking what’s going to happen to my baby so if I don’t survive? It was deeply traumatising.”

Niamh said the hospital was not able to handle the number of patients at 6 am when she arrived. Ms Farrell said she told her “I’m lucky I went in early in the morning. If I’d gone later, I don’t know if I’d still be here.”

“The hospital was clearly understaffed. The workers were run off their feet. They’re clearly wasn’t enough beds,” she said, adding that the stories such as Niamh’s were the reason the Government’s recruitment embargo was so dangerous. And she called for the 1,500 hospital beds still needed to be delivered.

Ms Farrell said Niamh wanted to give the Government a message that “people are dying needlessly in our emergency departments” and she could have been one of them.

The Tánaiste described Ms Farrell’s description of Niamh’s experience as “shocking in itself”, adding that it was clear she “went through an extraordinary traumatic and horrific journey from arrival to the emergency department and subsequent developments and treatment.”

He added that he was “mystified” at the recruitment embargo because 28,000 people have been recruited since 2020 to the health service.

He said “there comes a time when you have to look at other factors”.

Mr Martin said that “fundamentally the organisation of trauma and emergency departments is key to this”, the “multidisciplinary presences in emergency department is key, with proper rostering of emergency departments in terms of consultant presence”.

He added: “I think it raises many issues, more than just resources and more than just the embargo, quite frankly, because the numbers have increased substantially.”

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