Trolley figures skyrocket at MGH

‘Staffing crisis’ blamed for nine-fold increase in patients on trolleys in 12 month period

Ciara Galvin

A ‘staffing crisis’ is one of the key reasons why 105 patients at Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar were forced to wait on trolleys or chairs last month.
The figure skyrocketed by an incredible 950 per cent compared to August 2014.
Cllr Lisa Chambers cited a ‘staffing crisis’ after the increase was furnished to local councillors at the HSE West Forum in Galway on Tuesday last.
Cllr Chambers (FF) said there were no conclusive answers at the HSE West Forum last Tuesday.
“They were reluctant to admit there is a staffing crisis,” she told The Mayo News yesterday (Monday). “I know there’s a staffing crisis in there [Mayo General Hospital]. It’s hard for staff to get days off and because of the moratorium on hiring staff, agency staff are being brought in at a higher cost to the HSE. They wouldn’t have  the same level of training as full time staff,” said Cllr Chambers.  
She added that as a result of the lack of step down services people were occupying beds who did not require hospital care.
The HSE did note that the lack of step down care was an issue and said it was implementing procedures to address this.
Asked if she had been contacted by patients and those who experienced the prolonged stays on trolleys, Cllr Chambers referred to one specific case.
“There are people in their 70s and 80s sitting in trolleys and chairs. One man who contacted me about the issue was irate after his elderly mother was admitted to A&E with an infection in her arm. She was recovering from a stroke and came to the hospital with the infection and she was left in a chair for over a day,” she explained.
Cllr Chambers added that though this does not happen all the time it is happening more.
“They need to hire more full time staff and pay them properly. They are so stretched, they’re expected to do the work of two to three people.”
Cllr Chambers said the HSE failed to fully explain the reason for the vast increase but did concede Mayo General Hospital was one of the worst hospitals in the country during that period.
“The response I received [by the HSE] attempted to explain the increase but the figures simply did not add up. I said to Maurice Power (Acting Hospital Group CEO for the West/North West Group) that it was exceptionally bad and he agreed and said it was one of the worst hospitals in the country that month,” said Cllr Chambers.
In its response, the HSE outlined that the figures for August 2015 were particularly high as Emergency Department presentations were up by four per cent on the previous month and up by 3.9 per cent on August 2014.
The HSE went on to say that medical admissions were up by approximately 10 percent on August 2014 and admissions in July 2015 were also ‘very high’ which automatically impacts on the following month, in terms of length of stay for the first week to ten days and this results in ‘capacity issues’.
However, when questioned by Cllr Chambers about the 950 per cent increase, she was told by the HSE that ‘it was not possible to exactly state why this was the case’, but added that the hospital continued to have winter illness through the summer.
After asking the HSE if it could not identify the problem and why it occurred, Cllr Chambers asked how did it propose to address it and ensure it didn’t happen again, to which the councillor said ‘I was met with a blank expression, suggesting they couldn’t’.

Occupancy rate
Meanwhile, Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne has cited the enlarged area the hospital now services for the increased numbers.
“You have people coming from Roscommon, surely they should have planned for them, to have more beds available. I asked the HSE why people were on trolleys when the occupancy rate (in the hospital itself) was at 81 per cent, but I was told that when the figure was at 81 per cent there was nobody on trolleys. Several people have contacted me about this issue with some spending two to three nights on trolleys. That’s not good enough. They haven’t increased staff or the availability of beds and more people are going to get sick and more people are going to come from Roscommon,” said Cllr Kilcoyne.
There was no patients on trolleys at the hospital yesterday (Monday) according to trolley/ward watch figures on the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation site.
Ward watch is a count of the number of additional patients on beds, trolleys or chairs on inpatient wards/units.

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