An immunosuppressed mother, who waited on a chair with her sick daughter in Crumlin children’s hospital last week, is calling on conditions to be improved immediately.
Sara Byrne arrived at the emergency department in Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Crumlin last Tuesday with her three-year-old daughter Alice, who hadn’t been able to drink in 24 hours. After being triaged on a chair, the 35-year-old was distressed about the overcrowded conditions. “I started to get uncomfortable from the first moment in the waiting room. I was really concerned about picking up an infection,” said Ms Byrne, who is a double lung transplant recipient. “And I was deeply concerned for the children. There were children everywhere having procedures while waiting on chairs and attached to drips.”
Her own daughter was administered fluids and medication on a drip while she sat on her mother’s lap in the one chair available. “I put her in the buggy so she could sleep.”
Although her daughter was her main concern, Ms Byrne was concerned for her own health too. They were moved to a trolley in an isolation room after she told the staff how high-risk she was. Alice slept peacefully for four hours before they were forced to return to the chair.
“We moved back because we were told she was going home, but her health deteriorated so she needed to be admitted,” said Ms Byrne. “I asked if we could move back to our cubicle but the doctor said it wasn’t possible. I’m in awe of the staff working there daily. How are they going into work every day and providing care under these impossible conditions?”
The mother and daughter then spent the next 6½ hours on a chair together — from 10.30pm until 5am. They were afforded a couple of moments of privacy when Alice was moved to a cubicle to have a suppository administered. “I’m grateful to the staff for moving us to a cubicle for that treatment but I didn’t realise we would have to move back to the chair after it was done”. Byrne said that, although her daughter is doing well now, she is concerned about how traumatising the experience was. “I am heartbroken for my daughter and for every child who had to experience this and who will have to experience it this winter.
“When Alice was eventually able to sleep she would wake up screaming and terrified of what was happening all around her. The HSE and the Government need to do better. Think of how much higher the numbers will get this winter — we need more staff on the ground and we need better facilities. It’s inhumane.
“It was so distressing watching children getting procedures done in chairs, when you consider how much wealth Ireland has.”
On Wednesday morning, when she went to get coffee, Byrne saw another mother in distress. “I saw this boy in a bed opposite the coffee shop — where there would not normally be beds during the day.” She heard his mother asking the nurse to move him because he was in a draught. “It was really cold there and it was highly unusual to see a bed there.
“I attended Crumlin when I was a child and I was concerned about how to even get Alice there. The car parking spaces are no better than 20 years ago when I was there regularly. I’m lucky someone dropped us there, but what do mothers who don’t have that support do? It is bedlam in there.”
The hospital said that while this is not the experience they want families to have, they are experiencing almost double the amount of patients presenting at their emergency departments. “On average we have a 50 per cent increase in patients presenting. An average of 600 patients per day are attending the children’s hospitals in recent days (we would normally expect 300-400 patients per day),” a press release from Children’s Health Ireland said. “The vast majority of these children do not require medical review and parents are advised to consider caring for their child at home or explore other care pathways such as their GP or local pharmacy, if their child has milder symptoms and does not need emergency or urgent care.”
