Woman (93) spends 20 hours on a trolley in St James’s Hospital

The daughter of a 93-year-old woman has complained of her “outrage” after her mother spent 20 hours on a hospital trolley following a nine-hour wait for a doctor.

Margaret Fagan from Pimlico in Dublin was on a course of antibiotics to treat a chest infection when her daughter Rita rang St James's Hospital's out-of-hours DubDoc service on Sunday January 24th because she was becoming concerned about the pensioner's frail health.

Rita was reluctant to call an ambulance due to reports that the nearby hospital’s emergency department was full, and after calling the doctor service at 9.30am they had to wait until 6.30pm before one eventually arrived.

Her mother’s condition continued to deteriorate after the visit and an ambulance was called when she started to enter a “delirious” state.

Rita said: “I rang the ambulance, and then at that moment in time my mammy took a turn and I was shouting down the phone ‘she’s going, she’s going’”.

When Margaret Fagan reached St James’s emergency department she was put on a trolley.

She was diagnosed with pneumonia, put on a drip and given antibiotics while “very sick people vomited in front of everyone”, according to her daughter.

It was another 20 hours before they secured a bed.

‘Stressed’

She was “very stressed and very uncomfortable on her trolley”, according to Rita.

Rita believes the experiences of such patients constitutes a systemic "structural violence" against vulnerable individuals by the HSE and the Government.

“There’s something very wrong with this system. It’s not the hospital because when she got on to the ward the doctors and nurses couldn’t be doing any more for her,” she said.

“The hospitals are good, the staff are good, but if this Government tells me there is recovery, well then let’s see the recovery where people can actually recover from being sick.

“If our Government says they’re turning a corner, well then they need to show me where that corner is because I don’t believe it.”

A spokeswoman for St James's Hospital said patients are "prioritised based on their clinical need", and said "all staff strive to ensure each patient is as comfortable as possible" where delays in securing a bed occur.