Girl waiting six years for allergy test cannot get Tallaght bed

A Dublin mother who waited six years to see a consultant about her daughter's allergy says she can't get admitted to Tallaght Hospital because children's beds are being converted for adult use.

Judi Costello, who is from Dublin, says officials have told her there is no bed for her daughter Genevieve (9) because the paediatric Beech ward is being converted into an adult ward. The 16 beds are needed to reduce pressures caused by overcrowding in the emergency department.

Ms Costello says Genevieve suffers from a “life-threatening” allergy to pine-nuts and candles and her consultant says she needs to be admitted so that tests can be carried out for other allergies.

Trolley

Tallaght has been at the centre of controversy after it emerged a 91-year-old patient spent 29 hours on an emergency department trolley.

However, Ms Costello says both staff and management at the hospital have been “world-class” in making efforts “above and beyond the call of duty” for her daughter. She claims their “hands are tied” by the HSE. “This ward needs to be re-opened for children. You can’t be depriving people of services because of the crisis in A&E,” she says.

Genevieve, who has primary immune deficiency, suffered her first allergic reaction when she was two.

The hospital, while declining to comment in individual cases, says it is converting the Beech ward for adult use as “the most appropriate solution”. There are 61 children’s beds in Tallaght but occupancy last year was just 56 per cent. Since 2012, 16 beds have been closed and even with these closure there remains sufficient bed capacity for children, it said earlier this year.

‘Not sustainable’

“It is not sustainable to have underutilised capacity on a protracted basis in one part of the hospital while there is a significant and ongoing challenge with bed occupancy in another part.”

The three children’s hospitals at Tallaght, Crumlin and Temple Street are being merged and services will move to the new children’s hospital planned for the campus of St James’s Hospital. However, this process won’t be complete until 2020 at the earliest.

“Tallaght copes tremendously well with the withdrawal of services but I see a squeeze on paediatric resources that is pushing the doctors trying to work under pressure out to St James’s. They should have a full service open right up to the point the new hospital opens its doors,” said Ms Costello.