The current hospital / A&E crisis

kirk. · 18-01-2023 2:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120124596#Comment_120124596

They implemented a charge for medical card prescriptions

Surely they charge medical card patients a fee for the new primary care service

The existing out of hours service was centralised round here , the premises are already there just not the service or the staff

Anyway you seem to be circular debating so I'll leave it there

arctictree · 18-01-2023 8:22pm

I assume they will double the places in uni for trainee doctors too?

JP Liz V1 · 22-01-2023 11:30pm

If staff shortages, over worked staff and bed shortages were not enough now we have patients killing each other (30 year old violently attacking and killing an 89 year old at a Cork hospital ward)

NIMAN · 22-01-2023 11:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144108#Comment_120144108

But it would be a stretch to blame this on the government to be fair.

threeball · 23-01-2023 12:23am

The GP's and insurance companies have a huge case to answer regarding the issues in our hospitals. Half the people that go to a GP get refered onto A&E whether they need to or not.

Issues a GP would gladly have dealt with 15yrs ago they won't touch with a barge pole now. Some of it is down to just getting as many bodies through their doors as possible with the bigger issue being that the insurance companies have terrified them that they won't be covered should they make a bad call. So they pass the buck on everything from any ill child to stitches and sprains.

The primary care system needs to be properly resourced to take care of breaks, sprains, minor concussions etc to keep them out of the main hospitals and the GPs need to step up and actually give a diagnosis and care to their patients instead of just writing subscriptions and being a gatekeeper to the A&E.

Jarhead_Tendler · 23-01-2023 12:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120111150#Comment_120111150

I was going by Board members sorry

No of course they should not It just wouldn't fill me with confidence. No easy fix it appears otherwise we wouldn't be in this mess.

Dav010 · 23-01-2023 8:23am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144309#Comment_120144309

Just to clarify, given the number of medical card patients GPs see, getting as many as possible through the door isn’t a motivation, payment is associated with registration rather than number of visits. A considerable number of clinics are closed to new patients. Also, GPs are complaining they are overwhelmed, not that they aren’t seeing enough patients.

Secondly, clinicians pay indemnity insurance, insurers don’t refuse cover over “bad calls”. In terms of resourcing, it is not the case that Clinics do not want extra resources and staff, there are a lot of positions advertised, which unfortunately have no applicants, particularly in rural practices.

Cluedo Monopoly · 23-01-2023 9:59am

I was talking to a nurse at the weekend. She said 6 nurses had left her section in the last 3 months. Gone to Australia and Canada.

Graces7 · 27-01-2023 12:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144870#Comment_120144870

Wondering if those who go overseas stay there for the long term or not?

BattleCorp · 29-01-2023 5:44pm

The hemorrhaging of staff in the HSE is so bad that a memo went out this week stating that there would be permanent employment for all Health and Social Care Professional (HSCP) graduates from the class of 2023 if they passed an interview.

And they are also working with the colleges to ensure that the graduates are aware of the career opportunities that the HSE has to offer and is also providing them with the support to help them best prepare their application and also to prepare for interview.

Graces7 · 05-02-2023 2:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144309#Comment_120144309

Slight amendment to your excellent post. Many get referred to A and E by phone without being seen by their GP at all.

Graces7 · 05-02-2023 2:15pm

I spent most of last weekend abed and otherwise in the corridor outside a and e, with many many others. Having been assessed as needing urgent treatment. Still excellent treatment by the beleagured wonderful a and e staff as by the ancillary care workers. They are stars and deserve better. will be in touch with my TD.

05-02-2023 2:22pm

If I were a healthcare worker I think I would find Canada way too cold for me in winter, and Australia way too hot in summer. Maybe I’d alternate countries with seasonal work 😁

I know of one person who went to Oz, trained as a consultant and returned to Ireland to raise his family, and very happy to be home.

trishabon · 09-03-2023 3:51pm

Pharmacists can be very helpful with medication knowledge and advice on whether or not to attend a gp. I had to wait 10 days for an emergency phone consultation. A practice overwhelmed with medical card patients, as I am. Moved home about a year ago and having great difficulty with hse to transfer to a practice 2 blocks away.

Cluedo Monopoly · 16-03-2023 12:45pm

Hospital overcrowding 'out of control' with 651 patients awaiting beds (irishexaminer.com)

Hospital overcrowding 'out of control' with 651 patients awaiting beds.

“It is clear that hospital overcrowding is out of control once again. The level of overcrowding in some of our emergency departments warrants a national response.

“The INMO has been in contact with the new Chief Executive Officer of the Health Service Executive seeking an urgent meeting in the next 24 hours ahead of what will be an extremely busy bank holiday weekend for our members."

27 of those waiting on trolleys today are under the age of 16.

-----------------

It's happening throughput the year now and FFG are doing nothing to resolve it. Staff are at their wits end.

Breezy_ · 16-03-2023 7:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120365674#Comment_120365674

Nothing to do with whoever is in gov. Sinn Fein will be no different.

Breezy_ · 16-03-2023 7:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120365674#Comment_120365674

Nothing to do with whoever is in gov. Sinn Fein will be no different.

Cluedo Monopoly · 16-03-2023 9:39pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120367316#Comment_120367316

Of course it's the fault of successive FFG governments. The consultant on Drive time yesterday said the solution has been spelled out many times over the past 10 years - more bed capacity. FFG have failed to deliver and the problem is only getting worse.

I don't vote SF by the way. I voted FG for 20 years before 2016.

stargazer 68 · 16-03-2023 9:53pm

You can throw hundreds of staff and hundreds of bed at the hospitals but it's not going to cure the issue imo. The issue is step down care and home care packages - there just aren't enough.

Our population are living longer and when the elderly end up in hospital there is nowhere for them to go so they remain in acute hospitals far longer than they need to and far longer than is beneficial to them.

Goldengirl · 17-03-2023 9:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120367756#Comment_120367756

The solution is both, your post and Cluedo's.

Major staffing issues and overhaul needed.

Like we need more houses to buy and rent. Which feeds into the staffing issues.

Successive governments have let us down.. FF, FG, Lab, Greens.

All incapable of dealing with health and housing. They just don't understand it.

Education and Finance are the best run departments .(nothing to do with Norma I hasten to add!) Why is that?

Because so many teachers and business people in the political system/civil service.

We need encouragement for people from more diverse occupations in our political system.

Cluedo Monopoly · 17-03-2023 9:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120370891#Comment_120370891

I agree with your post but actually there is ample evidence to show that the Dept of Education is one of the poorest performing in the public service. It's supposed to be a complete bureaucracy and doss house. Look at the school bus programme and junior cert results in November for recent examples. Foley was a shambles during Covid.

Goldengirl · 17-03-2023 9:38pm

Yes Foley. Otherwise ran pretty well.

29-03-2024 4:25pm

was nearly going to start a new thread, but this one can be resuscitated, unlike the poor gentleman who was found literally off his trolley on the floor in UL Hospital in a state of rigid mortis. The man had been admitted with a severe respiratory infection due to immune suppression to manage his otherwise successful kidney transplant. He was an active person, his medical condition did not stop him going places and doing things, and had potentially plenty of life left in him if he had been looked after properly, which didn’t happen. It’s just not good enough to say staff were too busy to spot a dying patient.

29-03-2024 4:33pm

Today’s Indo details a plan to have GPs stationed to triage patients presenting at the overcrowded Emergency Dept of UL Hospital.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/hospital-will-station-gps-at-aande-doors-to-screen-patients-who-are-not-sick-enough/a2015031849.html

It seems that there are a significant number of people presenting with quite minor conditions or ones that can be easily managed by a GP, primary care centre or pharmacy. The plan is to redirect them out of the Emergency Dept to new primary care set-ups as trying to manage them in a setting where there are very seriously ill people needing full attention is just not appropriate and distracts from the care of critical cases.

NIMAN · 29-03-2024 4:41pm

We always knew that so many of those blocking emergency depts shouldn't be there at all.

Its the elephant in the room, but was rarely mentioned in the media when the topic was being discussed.

29-03-2024 5:19pm

Of course a lot of that is down to lack of GP availability, but there are some people who go for medical attention for very little reason, or for something non-serious that will resolve of its own accord.

I can think of one such instance related to me by a colleague years ago. My colleague was giving out about how badly her daughter was treated in A&E the previous night. The story went that she, a very healthy young girl without any medical issues, had eaten some food that was off, and not unsurprisingly developed diarrhoea that went on for several hours. She had her husband there to look after the young children, so no problem in that respect. Her mother accompanied her to the hospital as “she needed a drip”. Why she couldn’t have sipped dioralyte I don’t know. She wasn’t even vomiting at the time. Of course she was left sitting in A&E for hours, with mummy distressed that she still had the runs and was in and out to the loo every five minutes, as happens. Tests proved nothing serious going on, just a harmless form of short-acting food poisoning that would resolve, advised to go home and take dioralyte and have soup etc. Mammy absolutely insisted on a drip, they conceded to do that and then sent them home by taxi. As it turned out she was fighting fit again next morning. “Because of the drip” Mammy insisted. I had to nod politely, but I was thinking, what a waste of resources clogging up an emergency department where seriously ill people were competing for attention.

BrianD3 · 29-03-2024 6:33pm

GPs screening people at UHL A&E? I'll believe that when I see it. Is there a surplus of GPs in the Limerick area? I could see some GPs doing this alright if a ball of money is thrown at them. Ring your GP, be told there are none available, attend A&E - ah so that's where my GP is.

But it sounds more like a HSE version of TV Detector Vans. Don't attend the A&E as otherwise the boogeyman GP will stop you at the door - except there won't be any GP. It might actually work too but if that is their tactic, it shows how desperate they are.