The Emergency Department at University Hospital Galway has been branded “shocking and disturbing” – with staff trying their best to manage a “chaotic situation” – in an independent review commissioned by the Saolta Hospital Group.
The damning report – prepared by the Royal College of Nursing, Northern Ireland (RCNNI) – found the sight of sick and vulnerable patients lying on trolleys was “nothing short of scandalous, dehumanising, degrading”.
It described the system within the department as “a dangerous place, where the abnormal has become normal”, with a sense of nobody in charge at departmental or corporate level. Staff were praised for their work in “a completely substandard clinical environment and a deficit in clinical medical leadership”.
But many want to leave the Emergency Department (ED), and are only staying out of a sense of duty.
Many staff said the biggest problem facing the ED is the lack of a presence by consultants – there has been a huge separation between consultants and nursing staff for five or six years, and there is now a culture of acceptance among management.
And consultants have been accused of failing to take responsibility when things go wrong.
The leaked review – seen by the Connacht Tribune and covered extensively in this week’s edition – was commissioned by Saolta following serious concerns from nursing staff in the Emergency Department and was drawn up by Garrett Martin, Deputy Director of the RCNNI and Siobhán Donald, Nurse Consultant with the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency and also an RCNNI board member.
The Saolta Group said it is not in a position to comment on the review, as it is a draft report which has yet to go “the factual accuracy checking process”, but that the replacement of the ED remains a priority.
It added that since the report was commissioned in 2015, there has been a “substantial increase in staff in the ED across all disciplines.
This includes employing GPs as “senior decision makers” in the ED, as well attempting to recruit one full-time and two part-time consultants.
The review document found that the ED’s physical environment could only be described as shocking and disturbing.
“The reviewers found the sight of numerous sick and vulnerable patients lying on trolleys in full view of the public as nothing short of scandalous,” the report reads.
See full coverage and analysis of the report in this week’s Tribune
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