Urgent action needed to address trolley crisis - Patricia Ryan TD
Sinn Féin TD for South Kildare, Patricia Ryan, has called for urgent action to address the number of older people on trolleys in the Accident and Emergency Departments of our hospitals. She made the call after it was revealed in the Dáil yesterday by Sinn Féin Leader Mary Lou MacDonald that over 1,100 people aged 75 and older spent over 24 hours on a trolley last month
“This is utterly unacceptable. We have jumped from one health crisis to another. For two years we have fought to keep our health service from the brink of collapse and as soon as we are out of that emergency, we are catapulted straight back into a trolley crisis.
“To have more than a thousand people over the age of 75 waiting on a trolley for 24 hours is intolerable, every one of these 1,100 is someone’s loved one. And although the Taoiseach Micheál Martin has tried to brush these figures off as “record attendances,” Mr Martin has a short memory, these trolley crises are nothing new, they are a symptom of our very broken health system.
In 2006 Brendan Gleeson spoke about his experience with his parents in the HSE, he described it as “a military field hospital. They're absolutely out on their feet. They are doing everything possible to alleviate the suffering and the pain that's there but systematically, bureaucratically, the place is a disgrace, I mean it's a war crime what's happening in there. Old people particularly are being left on trolleys ad nauseum until they, you know, some of whom have died, we've heard, in recent years.”
“In 16 years, we have not moved on from the horror that Mr Gleeson spoke of.
“I would call for Minister Donnelly, and the Taoiseach to take this situation in hand. To have this amount of older people waiting on trolleys is not an issue that should be deferred, ignored or considered business as usual. It is simply not good enough and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”