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PATIENT OVERCROWDING HAS reached dangerous levels, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
The INMO is calling for the hospital’s emergency department to be taken off call for 48 hours to allow the department’s patient overcrowding to ease.
In a statement, the organisation said that “55 patients are awaiting an in-patient bed resulting in inhuman and degrading conditions for both patients and staff”.
It says that 29 clinically discharged patients in the hospital cannot be discharged due to the lack of available community beds or services.
INMO industrial relations officer Tony Fitzpatrick said, “You cannot keep the doors open when the emergency department is so overcrowded.”
All ambulances should be diverted for a 48 hour period in order to treat patients already admitted to the hospital. We are also calling for an immediate cap to be placed on the number of patients who can be looked after within the ED including the number of patients on trolleys.
The INMO also expressed concerns over understaffing and the shortage of basic equipment, impacting both on patient care and the pressure on staff.
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Drogheda staff try their best. In a county with towns as big as Dundalk and Drogheda, you need two big sized hospitals and many beds.
Open borders NOW!
Who lives here belongs here, to hell with hospital crowding……you are just hate-filled racists.
Ciara what the hell has open borders got to do with anything.
But sure blame the foreigners and not the HSE itself thats a good lass. That’ll make you feel better.
A direct result of Navan hospital and A & e services being cut,
Drogheda hospital has to cater for patients from Meath Cavan Monaghan as well as Louth .
It is not only a disgrace but a very dangerous situation ..
A new Regional Hospital is not only a necessity but should be a priority .
@ Mark
It’s not unknown for people from north county Dublin to head up to Drogheda as the waiting times in Beaumont are so long…..
Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda is one of the busiest hospitals in the country, their A&E Department treats almost 50,000 people annually putting them in the same league as the Beaumont and Mater Hospitals. The difference is that the Beaumont has a staff of about 3,000, the Mater, 1,500 but the Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda has a staff of about 1,200. This is what it boils down to. This hospital is expected to cover an enormous catchment area, it’s expected to do what the other main hospitals in the country can do, BUT, it’s expected to do all this with less of everything. It has a smaller budget, it has less staff, it has to bow and scrape for everything and then be expected to be grateful for everyone else’s scraps. It’s constantly criticised in the media, even the photographs they use are out of date.
The staff in this hospital are among the best you’ll find anywhere, they have to be working in the conditions they have to work in. I may be somewhat biased, they’ve treated me on a number of occasions, which is also why I’m a little dubious about some of what the HSE said in their statement.
The HSE claim there are only 25 patients waiting to be admitted from the A&E Department, they go on to say how all the staff are working hard to resolve this. They then say there was an additional demand placed on equipment “but this was sorted very promptly and additional equipment was made available.”
Now I’ve heard that some hospitals keep spare equipment available, but I know Our lady of Lourdes Hospital don’t do this, they don’t have the spare equipment or the space available. So in a hospital that’s literally overflowing, where did this additional equipment come from so quickly, it couldn’t have come from other wards as the HSE said they were full and needed it themselves.
Rumours abound that several of the staff in the A&E Department are so worn out from working extra shifts that they’re off work, exhausted.
It’s an absolute disgrace that the lives of so many people have been put at risk in the North East region.The closure of the Louth Hospital in Dundalk has left the Lourdes in an impossible situation.Cuts in staff and other health cuts have put the lives of the people of this region at huge risk.I know two years ago when I had to go to hospital late in the night I went to Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry.I have no criticism of the staff in the Lourdes.But they are I’n an impossible situation.People have already died as a result of what’s happening with overcrowding in the Lourdes.Im afraid this will continue
They’ve been advising people with minor injuries to try and use the County hospital in Dundalk which opens 8am – 9pm.
Meanwhile in Dundalk new beds and freshly painted rooms remain closed.
The HSE is insufficient. Too many pencil pushers and not enough frontline staff. Who suffers, the patient.
Only in Ireland !!!!!! Irish people are too soft and let their hospitals close
You should see the problems in Navan Hospital with overcrowding
I was in A&E in Lourdes the other night. So horrible to see people lying on trolleys ashamed of their lives, no dignity. They may as wel be treated out on the street. Staff are on top of their heads and do an incredible job in an appalling environment. Celtic tiger my arse.
Saw it with my own eyes last week when my own mother spent two days and nights on a trolley in a corridor in olol , the staff were absolutely run off their feet and ALL were extremely nice but the place is at breaking point , dirty, poor hygiene practices and zero dignity for the patients a third world health system is what we have and the louth county hospital lying empty shame on our government
youve the situation where there was a report in a local paper recently that a chap got injured playing in pairc tailteann in navan and youd hit navan hospital with a badly kicked ball from the pitch but had to be brought to drogheda due to the cut backs, the same happens to folk in dundalk and cavan. its disgraceful that the hospital has to serve the enitre population of the north east not withstanding the restricted hours mentioned above for dundalk hospital.
We are meant to move forward with things as years progress.. but with our hospitals it seems to be worsening. The poor staff (nurses and doctors) are pushed to extremes. .make mistakes and the hse gets sued costing probably around the same as it would to hire more staff in the first place which surely would remove the initial problem! Why is this not the logical answer?
The Government spending millions abroad. And not a penny to our needy hospitals here at home.
..should read ‘is sending millions abroad ‘
When the new ED was built a few years ago nothing was done to improve the clinic situation, the empty ED is used for admin as far as I know. The clinics are hell, fracture clinics are huge as are the paediatric clinics. Staff are under ridiculous pressure. Bad planning, no proper funding and no respect for staff or patients, I think our health service is unsaveable. The HSE closed hospital and down graded others and the staff in Drogheda are supposed to do everything
I’m afraid this is wrong Sarah. While the new ED Department was woefully too small for it’s intended purpose, the old one was refurbished and turned into an Acute Medical Assessment Unit, AMAU, this also helps to take the pressure off the new ED Department, I’ve spent several nights in this unit and the staff couldn’t be nicer. It is not used for admin.
You are right about the clinics, these are held in the old hospital building and have been there for decades and are just as frustrating for the staff working there.
I’m told there is a major building expansion planned shortly, this will see the ED Department size greatly increase, wards and clinics etc. It can’t happen soon enough.
@Sarah not only is it in Ireland, they closing/merging with neighbouring
Trusts in the uk. It’s moving towards the usa model unfortunately.In the uk
the nhs was designed to be free at source,but as immigration has increased
alarmingly the nhs is struggling to cope.
Probably the same in Ireland,where will it end?
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