Lives put at risk as A&E crisis worsens
WAITING times at A&E hospital departments have worsened -- despite a high-profile government pledge to cut delays to a maximum of 12 hours.
This revelation emerged in a new analysis of health figures and last night prompted a senior doctor to predict more people will die needlessly in A&E this year.
The senior emergency consultant, who represents frontline doctors, also unleashed stinging criticism of HSE chief Brendan Drumm, accusing him of doing nothing to stem the death toll in A&E wards.
Senior consultants predict more people will die as a result of hospital overcrowding than on our roads this year.
Health Minister Mary Harney commissioned a 'task force' to carry out a major report on A&E overcrowding in March 2006. At the time she described it as a "national emergency".
The report called for a limit to be imposed on the time patients should spend in emergency departments before they are given a bed.
However, it took the HSE until October last to set a 12-hour target.
But now senior A&E consultants claim delays have actually worsened since the report's publication.
An analysis of the HSE's national figures carried out by emergency consultant Dr Patrick Plunkett found the patient delays have worsened in recent months.
And in a strongly-worded letter to the HSE -- seen by the Irish Independent -- the President of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine, Dr Fergal Hickey:
l accused the HSE of refusing to implement the task force report;
l attacked embattled chief Brendan Drumm's lack of expertise in the area and for his "ignorance" of the growing problem;
l called for a mandatory 12-hour waiting time period for A&E patients.
A total of 336 people perished on our roads in 2007, an 8pc decrease in the number of fatalities the previous year.
But A&E doctors warn that, based on international trends, at least 360 patients will lose their lives as a result of hospital and A&E overcrowding this coming year
A&E departments in hospitals are this week bracing themselves for the surge in patients seeking emergency care who put off treatment over Christmas.
But according to senior emergency consultants, health authorities have done nothing to ease the chronic congestion in casualty wards.
In a highly critical letter to John O'Brien, head of the HSE's winter initiative drive, Dr Hickey, openly questioned Prof Drumm's ability to tackle what has become one of the key crisis areas in the beleaguered heath system.
"I am certainly not alone in being of the view that Prof Drumm's experience of and expertise in Emergency Medicine or Emergency Care is extremely limited," he said.
"We only judge him on what he says and does and in both these respects he has shown a considerable degree of ignorance of the issues.
"I am not aware of any recent intervention by the CEO which would cause me to change this view.
"If you have some particular development which you wish to share it would be preferable that you inform us rather than 'tease' with it as you have."
Dr Hickey called on the HSE to follow the lead of the UK and introduce a mandatory waiting time limit beyond which patients in emergency departments won't have to wait for a bed.
He also said it is essential a senior staff member of the hospital is made personally responsible and held to account for ensuring the mandatory limit is enforced.
Since October the HSE set a target "that no patient wait more than 12 hours from the time they are deemed in need of admission to a bed to the point where they are moved to a ward".
But in an analysis of the HSE's national figures, emergency consultant Dr Patrick Plunkett found the patient delays have worsened in recent months.
"Our view of the the Task Force Report is very simple: the report was commissioned by the Minister for Health and Children and the HSE to address what the Minister had described as a national emergency. Having gone to the trouble of producing a very detailed report, it is incumbent, not optional, on the HSE to implement this."
The HSE has insisted it has invested in a series of measures to reduce overcrowding and that the situation has improved.
However, Fine Gael health spokesman James Reilly last night said it was time for the HSE to now admit that hospitals around the country need more beds .
"Patients are being put at risk because of the ongoing conditions they face in hospital and there is still a serious lack of alternative nursing home and other facilities for people who no longer need acute care," he added.
- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent
