SOME 714 PEOPLE were on trolleys this morning – the highest number ever recorded in a single day, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
University Hospital Limerick saw the highest figures today, as a total of 80 people were awaiting admission to a bed.
The figures also show that there were 45 patients waiting on trolleys in University Hospital Galway, 43 in Cork University Hospital, 40 in Tallaght Hospital and 37 in Mullingar’s Midland Regional Hospital.
A total of 15 children were left waiting on trolleys in Children’s University Hospital, Temple Street and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin. There were no children waiting on trolleys in the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght today.
Bantry General Hospital, Nenagh General Hospital and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda were the only three hospitals in the country that did not have any patients waiting on trolleys this morning.
Last week, the IMNO recorded over 600 patients on trolleys in hospitals around the country every day.
“We saw record trolley figures last week with a total of 3,112 in just one week and today each daily total from that week has been surpassed by the extraordinary figure of 714 admitted patients on trolleys today,” INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said.
“This upsurge was predictable and the INMO warned against inaction or insufficient action in the wake of Storm Emma. It is unfortunate for both healthcare staff and patients that these warnings were not heeded and that emergency measures sought have not been put in place,” she said.
The INMO are, yet again, calling for emergency status to be immediately declared and emergency response plans put into operation.
Speaking in January, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he doesn’t want any patient in Ireland to “face the indignity and the risk to their health that comes with prolonged trolley waits”.
The Taoiseach said the case for extra beds in our hospitals is “indisputable”.
“Even if there was no overcrowding in our hospitals we would say we still need more bed capacity and that’s down to the fact that we have a growing population, an ageing population.”
‘Absolutely deplorable’
Fianna Fáil health spokesperson Billy Kelleher has described the latest INMO figures as “absolutely deplorable”.
“Last week was the worst week ever experienced for emergency department overcrowding. Today we are seeing the worst day ever. It’s truly shocking,” Kelleher said.
“It is critical that the capacity review, published earlier this year, is acted on as a matter of urgency,” he said.
To have 714 people awaiting admission shows the distance we need to go before our health system is able to cope with the demands that are being put on it.
A population that is getting progressively older means that these problems are not likely to go away soon and the Minister must act without delay.
Nursing homes spaces
Nursing Homes Ireland (NHI) has today written to Minister for Health Simon Harris and the HSE to inform of bed availability within nursing homes to alleviate overcrowding in hospitals.
NHI said it undertook a survey last week of private and voluntary nursing homes that showed there were 537 beds available within 114 nursing homes.
69% of survey respondents had bed availability, with 166 responding. This snapshot represents around 25% of private and voluntary nursing homes, according to NHI.
Tallaght University Hospital said in a statement today that it is experiencing a very high number of emergency attendances, which is resulting in longer patient waiting times.
“We are asking the public where possible to attend their GP or out-of-hours GP services in the first instance,” the statement said.
“Emergency department patients are seen in order of priority which may result in patients with minor illnesses or injuries experiencing delays. We would like to thank the general public for their understanding and cooperation during this busy period.”
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What a country¿
@Maxwell Eddizon: what a goverment
@Maxwell Eddizon: It’s like the govt want the Health service to collapse so as it can be sold to private operators .
@Maxwell Eddizon:
Run by incompetent not fit for purpose FFG politicians.
Yer man Simon Harris is off his trolley.
@Niall Quinlan: No, Governments and state bureaucracies don’t run things well, especially something as complicated as healthcare. Until we move to an alternative system (taking inspiration from countries like the Netherlands, France or Germany) this is going to continue. Regardless of the Government. Calls by the social dems, FF and SF to double down on the current state run, bureaucracy heavy will just make things even worse
@Niall Quinlan: The privatisation of our Health Service has begun years ago, many of the staff like nurses and nurses aides are not employed by the HSE but rather through Agencies. This actually costs more to the taxpayer.
I’ve heard that the same thing is now taking place with other disciplines, everything from radiographers to doctors, and is costing more than if they were just employed by the respective hospitals.
Many years ago the cleaning of our hospitals was carried out by cleaning staff who were trained and worked for the various hospitals, they were assigned to their areas and took a degree of pride in their work. Now it’s all done by agency staff, to be fair on minimum wage, most don’t know where they’ll be assigned from one day to the next.
The same thing can be said for ambulances and paramedics, most patient transfers are now carried out by private companies rather than HSE ambulances and personnel.
Our universities train about 1,500 nurses every year to a very high standard and many are left with no choice but to go abroad for work. At the same time almost every major hospital in the country will send staff abroad to recruit nurses from such countries as India, Pakistan, the Philippines etc. Now what do these countries have in common? What’s stopping every hospital from re-engaging with the various universities and re-establishing arrangements they used to have in place?
The only thing that’s left to be sold off to private agencies is the hospitals themselves, the nursing homes are gone to private companies. You can be sure we’ll be sold a deal that’ll sound so good we’ll probably welcome it – at first.
@Jed I. Knight: Hospitals should be publicly owned but run by an independent management team consisting of doctors and trained managers with a proven track record of good management. They should be paid based on performance and be fired or demoted if they have a poor record. Same for all other staff. At the moment hospitals are run by career bureaucrats who are promoted based on the number of years they have been working in the PS and who can’t be fired or have their pay reduced for lack of performance The hospital should be paid for services rendered, not funded by block grants – this rewards shorter waiting lists, not incentivise them like the current system.
@Christy Nolan: Simon and Leo must be VERY PROUD. HIGHEST EVER TROLLEY NUMBERS and HIGHEST EVER HOMELESSNESS FIGURES.
No doubt they will be BOASTING about it abroad for St.Patricks day.
I wonder how long did it take for Simon to think of an EXCUSE- STORM EMMA. They couldn’t discharge patients because of it !!!
Newsflash Simon that was OVER 10 DAYS AGO thousands could have been discharged since.
A 6th class child could think up a better excuse than that. I would re-think those advisers of yours SERIOUSLY.
@Damon16: Sorry, while I can see your point I think your logic here is flawed. We want a publicly owned Health System with hospitals managed by doctors and a suitably trained management team. To what end?
Our Health System currently costs in excess of €15 billion annually so it’s safe to say it isn’t designed to make a profit and you want to fire or demote these people based on performance. How are you going to measure that exactly? Are you going to say if you don’t perform X amount of hip replacements or perhaps Y amount of endoscopies we’ll reduce your funding. You can see the flaw there already I’m sure. With less funding those numbers are going to decrease further, standards will slip and, inevitably, patients will suffer.
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers here, I don’t, but I recognise the wrong ones when I hear them. I agree we need to change our current system and look at other countries, learn from their models and, yes, incentivise hospitals to reduce waiting lists. It’s clear our model doesn’t work and needs to be changed.
I don’t think it’s fair to tar all HSE managers with the same brush however and label them all as “career bureaucrats”, no doubt some are but there are many more who are hard working, well qualified managers. The problem may well be one of political interference, you only have to look at the entire Children’s Hospital and new National Maternity Hospital debacles as two examples of this.
@Niall Quinlan: That’s because it’s exactly their plan. Mothball its first then argue for privatisation so their insurance palls with the brown envelopes can mop up. It will be a legal requirement to have private health insurance just like here in Australia where premiums have increased 30% in the past 5 years. Just wait, it’s coming…
“Speaking in January, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he doesn’t want any patient in Ireland to “face the indignity and the risk to their health that comes with prolonged trolley waits”.
It’s March Leo….by all means, refresh our memories….say it again?
If you aren’t an argument for “talk is cheap”…we, who all listen to your and you party’s rhetoric over and over, don’t know what is.
And my dyslexia has kicked in….
Last sentence should read….we, who all listen to you and your party’s rhetoric over and over…
@Patty Cullinane: It will be ok. He has gone to ask the native Americans for more money.
@Patty Cullinane: Will they have to wait for the 2040 PLAN?
Republic of opportunity (for private health insurers to make off like bandits)
At this stage I’m wondering who supplies the HSE with the trollies. It must be a good earner and there is never a shortage of them.
@David Dickson: shouldn’t be too much longer now before they’ll be announcing a shortage of trolleys!…
@Kate Flaherty: ..followed by some company called TrolleyServ being awarded the contract on foot of a €300,000,000 debt writeoff.
@Kate Flaherty: I think Kate , we are already there, it has moved on to chairs now and if you vacate your chair well don’t expect it will still be available when you return.
@Honeybee: It would be funny if it wasn’t the truth!…
@The Risen: TrolleyServ!, owned by some td or his son/daughter, brother/sister, uncle, you get the picture!…
@Kate Flaherty: Yes , we see
@David Dickson: there is actually a shortage of trollies, I, and many other patients have spent hours and days in chairs in A&E. I often wonder when the give the numbers of those waiting on trollies do they include those in chairs or they extra.
As the cabinet start packing for the annual st patricks day jaunt ,kindly sponsored by the taxpayer ,the trolley crisis continues to rumble on ,those 5,000 euro suits and polished armani brief cases will be doing the rounds in all sorts of exotic places ,dont forget to send us all a postcard .paddy likes to know
Let’s keep the recovery going.
@The Irish Bull: The recovery can only begin once you get into hospital and get treatment first
This has been a problem for successive governments for decades now. I just don’t get how this cannot be solved? Surely it’s the same issues causing this. Must be some vested interests going on here.
@Keith Healy: this was not an issue 20 years ago. i can remember sitting in A&E, in the south infirmary in cork, waiting for my parents after they went with staff to get mum checked for high blood pressure (canadian guy ran into the side of our car, looking the wrong way whilst crossing the road). there was me, 2-3 nurses, and maybe one other person at the time… about 8pm or later in august.
@Mirabelle Stonegate: Those were the days Mirabelle, this morning I read that 13 million euro was raised by charging patients and their families in hospital car parks, now it is about monstrous trolley waiting lists, we are going backwards with care in this country and all our Ministers who are supposed to do something are taking to the skies for the holiday weekend, stay well folks and if possible stay away from the hospitals, they are lethal to your health and well being .
@Honeybee: In the past 20 years or so the amounts of available beds in Irish hospitals has been cut back, in the same time our population has increased by about 20%. These are facts.
In the same period hospital staff and material were also cut back, the ambulance available were reduced, the answer was to employ various private ambulance companies for patient transfer.
Nurses and nurses aides were reduced, the answer again was to employ them through “Agencies”. I understand this is also being done with many other disciplines now too.
As more of the “Health Board homes for the Elderly” were closed down the only option was a greater reliance on privately run nursing homes.
Almost every expert in the field has been screaming for years that, just to maintain the current status quo of trollies on corridors, we must build several additional hospitals and place an additional 2,000 beds available every year for the next ten years. Have you seen any signs of that?
Bear in mind this wouldn’t take into account our anticipated aging population, which will require even more. What this means is we’re are screwed, there is a lot worse to come. And regardless of what government party is in power everyone knows about it.
You’d be forgiven for thinking they’re allowing the situation to get much, much worse. Oh sure they’re spending a few hundred million here and there, even building the most expensive Children’s Hospital in the world, pouring billions into it, money that could be better spent elsewhere. You’d be forgiven for thinking the’re setting up the entire Health System in this country to be privatised, but they wouldn’t do that. Would they?
@Jed I. Knight: Is there ANYONE in the HSE able to THINK.
Wouldn’t let them do the shopping because they would spend all the shopping money and come back with food for 4 days you could starve for the other 3 days.
They are employing agency nurses instead of hiring themselves. The agencies aren’t doing them a favour they make money out of it. They could have MORE NURSES for the same spend.
Similarly with doctors and consultants – employing locums which COST MORE than a doctor or consultant they would be employing directly.
They are carefully watching the BIG costs- paper,elastic bands and paper clips to their credit.
In 2011 numbers of nurses and doctors were cut drastically and an embargo on hiring was imposed however an interesting fact is that this embargo did NOT apply to managers and admin staff in fact their numbers GREW BY 10% during that time DESPITE the fact that there were less frontline staff to “manage”
No accountability only throw more money at them.
We are spending much more per capita on HEALTH than countries who have a proper Health service
There arent enough functional a&e departments. Smaller hospital a&e were closed and made minor injury clinics instead. There wards are basically used as nursing homes for the elderly.
There is only one way to fix this, open more hospitals, hire staff to fill these hospitals. It’s only going to get worse.
Limerick isn’t able to deal with the amount of people going there. Thats even after the ill thought out extension.
@Lily: Yes new A&E’s are NOT the solution they may need a bit of modernisation but that would not be a big cost.
The problem is that if a patient needs to be admitted there is NO BED so they have to stay in A&E and until they get a bed no other patient can brought in to A&E to be treated. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that opening more wards and staffing them is the solution to the trolley crisis and also the lengthening waiting lists as they cancel elective surgeries due to the trolley crisis. There is a cost involved in cancelling surgeries as well. The surgeons and theatre staff can’t do their job but have to be paid.
And not a mention on RTE radio. they were too busy talking to their former work buddie mary macaleese all morning.
@Sean Conway: and discussing how many millions HSE gets from parking charges. It’s a joke!
So wonderful while the ministers are off promoting Ireland for business. Come to Ireland, there’s nowhere to live and if you get sick well good luck with that then.
@David Quigley: spot on
The inconvenient truth is that hospitals are so poor in this country for two reasons:
Firstly the strength of Unions means the hospital staff won’t lift a finger unless it’s written down on some contract, and Unions also block much needs organisational changes to make the hospital run more efficiently. If managers had the power to actually change things, they would do so and things would get better. But they’re blocked by the Unions.
Secondly the high marginal tax rates in this country means we are still seeing a hemoraging of highly skilled doctors, surgeons etc out of the country. This shows the illiteracy of left wing parties like SF and Labour when they call for higher tax rates and a better hospital system…the two things are incompatable.
@Fred Joyson: Fred you do realise that your snobbery and hatred has turned you into one of the biggest jokes on the Journal?
@Fred Joyson:
You left out reason number 3 Fred – the most inexcusable contributing factor of all – Fine Gael’s lack of desire, continued incompetence and inability to address any of it. They’d rather subsidize it than fix it because it is now very apparent that they are completely clueless on the issue. Ten years of excuses already.
@Fred Joyson: have no fear, our government plan to increase the population 25% by importing 1 million people between now and 2040 which should ease the burden on health, housing and public services. I’m sure the new settlers will include large number of highly skilled doctors, surgeons, engineers, planners etc,
@Fred Joyson: I’m confused Fred .. when did SF and Labour implement the high rates of marginal tax.
Only an idiot could blame this on SF … considering they have never been in government … and Labour were hardly left wing when one saw how they acted in 2011.
@Fred Joyson: so it was the unions that closed down thousands of beds nation wide?? Swines.
Meanwhile, simple Simon is spending his time tweeting about ‘repeal the 8th’.
Ironically, a vote for ‘repeal the 8th’ is a vote to add to the chaos in the health service and to increase waiting times for women in need of genuine healthcare.
Don’t take my word for it. See what Dr Peter McKenna, clinical director of the HSE’s Women and Infant’s programme said on the matter.
@Emma Murphy: Considering how absurd Irish health system is (e.g. 10 month wait for already diagnosed cancer to start treatment) – I wouldn’t be surprised to see 1 year waiting list for pregnancy, blaming all on the 8th.
What a kip
When is this going to end. This is a CRISIS, yes CRISIS, I don’t care where the government is going to get the money from to fix it. This is not a third world country and our hospitals look like we are living in a third world country. Every time my family member ends up in hospital in Naas I fear for their mental state. And it’s not only the f…g trollies, it’s missing blood samples, overworked staff who forget about patients. It’s insane. The population is growing and the number of beds hasn’t in years! I’m so angry.
@Patricia Dreemer: and hanging antibiotics being infused from curtain hooks !! No dispenser on hand gel units , women and men side by side in cramped wards . Disgusting. I’ve seen it all up there.
Let’s see if Leo’s spin department can put a positive FG angle on this.
Where’s the SCUT defence troll team? I wonder will our illustrious Spin Dr mention how much he does not care about the average citizen of Ireland when he meets the Choctaw lads for a Pow Wow! Another record broken by Fib A Gale and being ‘managed’ badky by the clown prince Harris. What a mess they’ve created …again. Disgraceful record.
No wonder I had to queue for a trolley in the supermarket last week
Trinity college research:
HSE made €2.7B of cuts during recession.
12,000 less HSE staff.
21,000 inpatient drop
30,000 daycare drop during 2012-2014
Loss of 2m homehelp hours.
Note:during this time there were companies in Ireland paying very little tax &big writedown of debts for some.Also the population increased by 173,613 between 2011-2016.Why weren’t the austerity policies scrutinized re consequences on society and services?
In Oct last year there were 589,000 on hospital waiting lists and it was reported that Ireland fell even further in rankings to 24/31 countries re ‘worst hospital waiting lists in Europe’
I read an article in Aug’16 that homehelp cuts “seeing offloading of patients into hospitals”It Ex
ill thought out policies can have devastating consequences on people and services!
In 2015 consultants were calling of hospitals “death zones” so where was the URGENT response?Now 3 years later it’s the highest ever recorded number on trollies.!It’s not acceptable!It has developed from crisis into National Emergency.
How long will those on hospital waiting lists in considerable stress or pain or conditions worsening have to wait until they get treatment?How many years until Slainte Care implemented?
@Nuala Mc Namara: Leo and Simon are waiting for fianna fail to call the election ,then you will see the goody bag rolled out ,its not about patients and people ,its run of the mill irish politics .the same old same old and we buy every time .
@Anthony Gallagher: I can’t understand why there isn’t acknowledgement that Ireland’s health crisis has developed into an emergency and therefore there’s no real sence of urgency in adequately tackling same.
Theres a shocking 714 on hospital trolleys from children to elderly yet Ireland has the highest spend on health per pop in Europe!
I think change is happening re voting , slowly but surely!
Strange we can staff drug injecting centres but not hospitals ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ priorities much¿
Ffg/lieb they just don’t care otherwise it would have been fixed by now. Really think about that.
Get simon harris out of that job,and find someone qualified for god sake.this goverment is killing people.
@@mdmak33: Save for completely overhauling the system which is impossible due to entrenched special interests (mainly the PS unions), no politician no matter how qualified can anything but effect small improvements on the margins
@@mdmak33: And they intend to kill MORE!
Ageing population is just an excuse that gets bandied about too often! Do something about it HSE and Dept of Health
We need solutions, not excuses. Sort out top heavy management for a start, but nobody has the courage to do that.
The Healthcare system in this country is a joke.
As a young Fine Gael member recently said to me, “If people didn’t get sick regularly we wouldn’t have this problem. There should be a cap on hospital visits, once every five years. But you can be sure a lot of old people won’t abide by those rules so how in gods name do the electorate expect us to keep trolley numbers down!”
If the public health service properly functions as a health service, then no one will buy private health insurance or use private hospitals.
The public health service will continue to be run down, though adequately funded, the funds are totally misused, it’s a gravy train for consultants and those at the top of the HSE.
To many vested interests are at stake if the public health service was to provide a proper service.
@Dave Doyle: The system is set up to fail but not by intention. The HSE is a PS bureaucracy and have a monopoly on the system. We’ve modeled the system on the failing NHS but with the Irish PS penchant for gross mismanagement and populist politics that pander to the unions for votes . We need to look to Europe – Germany, France etc. Systems funded by social insurance where hospitals are independently managed and paid for services rendered.
Patients are numbers not people at the moment in this country. Unfortunately our family has experienced first hand how bad things currently are.
Most Fine Gael supporters have health insurance so we will wait a long time for any action. Also the HSE is so dysfunctional that it will be unable to action any viable plans.
I’ve watched the lot of ya running HSE and regardless of governing party, all of you get a FAIL from me. Loads of critics, loads of complaining, moaning, and whinging and no progress, it’s the proverbial can kicked down the road.
Government squanders €750 Million on foreign aid as over 700 Irish patients lay in hospital trolleys and our little Taoiseach plans to lecture Donald Trump on “Gay Rights”
Just doesn’t add up!!
Just compensate those left on trollies at the standard daily hospital rate so that there
is no financial benefit for the HSE in leaving patients on trollies. If the actual daily hospital rate is say E360/day, then pay the patient E30/hour after a waiting time of
say 3 hours.
Easy!
The Minister for Health should be addressing the real problems instead of promoting abortion of innocent defenseless human babies.
He is supported by The Minister for children who is now also promoting abortion!
What a contradiction!
too busy planning to introduce the death sentence of our unborn babies and too busy jetting off to foreigh parts at the taxpayers expense. what a Government.!!!
have your say