The case of a 77-year-old woman left on a trolley in an accident and emergency department since Monday has been described as a "shocking" but not unique story about the state of the health service.
Peg McEntee was on a trolley in the accident and emergency (A&E) unit of the Mater hospital in Dublin from Monday evening until today. It is believed she got a bed today after her family spoke of her plight on national radio and in newspaper stories.
Her son Eamonn McEntee said today that staff at the unit were doing their best but that the conditions were of the ‘third world’.
An ambulance was called to take Mrs McEntee to hospital on Monday evening on the recommendation of her doctor. Some 17 hours later, after she had spent time on a trolley, tests diagnosed that she had suffered a heart attack.
“Since then, she has been looked after very well by the staff there but in conditions which you can only describe as ‘third world’,” Mr McEntee said.
He said in some cases, two people were in cubicles meant for just one person. There were also people “sitting around on chairs”.
He told RTÉ's Morning Irelandprogramme: "The family have been in and out since Monday and you are looking at the same people sitting in the same places since Monday. Nobody seems to be able to get into a bed at all.
“Up until 5 o’clock yesterday evening, my mother was ninth in the queue for a bed, for a ward, and we were told that may change, it may get worse depending on admissions during the night.”
“Yesterday at one stage she was moved into what’s called a trauma unit, a small section of the A&E and a little quieter than the rest of the department. But unfortunately, this morning at around 7.30 she was moved back out into the general area because of overcrowding in the trauma unit.”
Mrs McEntee is now “more or less bed ridden” and can’t breathe if she tries to walk, her son said.
“Nobody wants to have their mother on the front page of any newspaper. This was borne out of sheer frustration. My mother unfortunately was in the Mater A&E just after Christmas and it was the same situation. She was there at one stage for 26 hours on a trolley.
“She’s distressed. She has said she wants to die. She is so confused about where she is and what is happening to her that she feels at this stage she is just a burden on her family and she wants to die. For any of her children to hear that is so distressing and so annoying and so frustrating.
“All we are looking for is a little comfort for her. We know that her physical condition is such that she is not going to recover from what she suffers from. But, at least make her comfortable. Although the staff in the A&E are doing their best, it is not where she should be. The emergency part of her treatment is over. She should be moved into a ward where there’s a little bit more comfort, a little bit more dignity.”
Mr McEntee said the health service was “like a bottomless pit”.
“But unfortunately, we can’t find out where that money is actually going. It doesn’t appear to be going on the frontline units. It appears to be going on administrative staff, just creating layers and layers of bureaucracy.”
He said he had tried to contact the Health Service Executive to get an answer about why his mother was suffering these conditions, but no one seemed to be able to give him an answer.
“[Minister for Health Mary Harney declared a state of emergency in the A&E 18 months ago….and nothing has happened,” he said.
“It just makes me laugh to see the Government are going to be delivering booklets to all our doors to let us know what’s going to happen in emergencies and they can’t even sort out an emergency that is happening at this moment and that has been going on for the last five years. It’s just so frustrating.”
Asked on Newstalk radio about claims that Mrs McEntee had endured a long wait to see a cardiologist, Ms Harney said: “I don’t believe that is the case actually.
“And I think you need to be careful about what the Mater hospital have or have not confirmed. There are many cases that sometimes come into the public domain. I’m not specifically talking about this one, and very often the facts that emerge do not bear out what is often said in public. I’m not saying that this is such a case but it would be highly inappropriate for me to comment on an individual case.”
Labour Party TD Joe Costello, in whose constituency the Mater is located, said the “harrowing” case was among the most shocking stories to emerge about the deplorable conditions in the hospital’s A&E department”.
“Unfortunately while Mrs McEntee’s case is absolutely outrageous it is by no means isolated and is in many ways typical of cases that are brought to my attention on a regular basis,” he said.
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said Mrs McEntee “may be one individual case but the fact is that our failing health service is adversely affecting patients right across the country”.
“I have been made aware of another case in Cork where a woman was on a trolley for 48 hours where her oxygen ran out twice and these are not isolated cases.
“In April so far an average of 306 people have been on hospital trolleys every day,” he said.