The depressing news that the hospital figures for October show that the first ten months of this year have been the worst ever in terms of people on trolleys shows once again that Minister Varadkar and the HSE are not tackling these problems seriously, and it is set to get worse too. Remember that we have had a very mild Autumn so far. If the weather gets severe, there will be even more chaos in the system if that were possible. The heart rending stories that are once again i…n the public arena, like the 91 year old man who was left lying on a hospital trolley for 29 hours earlier this week, and several more similar tales show that things are getting worse, not better.
The consultant who was trying to look after this 91 year old man man said the following this week, and I quote “This man’s case is an example of how a dysfunctional system disgracefully treats some of our senior citizens who are among the most vulnerable in our society. This man had no privacy and no dignity. He was subjected to noise torture and light torture resulting in sleep deprivation. Nobody of any age should be subjected to this inhumanity”
That’s not Michael Fitzmaurice talking, it is an A and E consultant on the front line. While this is all going on, the darling of the media, Minister Leo Varadkar gets a free pass for some reason and he seems to be immune from criticism while the situation at our A and E departments and our hospitals gets worse every day and every week. Making big announcements every so often is simply not working. It is time to solve this disastrous and disgraceful situation once and for all.