no room to swing a cat

The computer stared at me blankly…

49 waiting in majors

25 waiting in minors

17 waiting for a bed in the hospital

4 doctors on duty for the night

There have been overcrowding issuesfor some time in the Irish health system and last night was a prime example of how bad it could get at St Elsewhere’s. Patients were lying on trolleys throughout the emergency department, lying along the public corridor or even spending the night on chairs. As an emergency physician there is more than a little frustration with it all. The backlog means that staff are unable to see new patients due to a lack of trolleys to physically put people on, the nurses have two or three times the normal number of patients to look after and the people waiting are understandably annoyed and frustrated. Some people wait (in some cases) up to 10hrs with presentations that could be dangerous like chest pain or shortness of breath.

In addition to these ’system failures’ there are the inevitable (and usually more vocal) patients who should have gone to their GP and are clogging the waiting room. Back pain for a year, sore toes.etc Although, whilst frustrating, they do not make up the bulk of patients that present to A&E.

The night was a hard slog with constant streams of patients coming in the door, presenting to the nurse’s station to complain about the waiting time and troubleshooting with sick patients who were already in the department. When I left at 3am I was shattered.

The computer stared at me blankly…

43 patients waiting in majors

27 waiting in minors

23 waiting for a bed

Twelve hour’s work and hardly a dent made. I walked out passed the patients lying on trolleys along the brightly lit, cold corridor then through the (full) waiting room into the cold night. The distant wail of a siren heralded another number to be added to the waiting screen.

~ by Dr Ben on February 21, 2007.