Spin Doctors Unable To Replace Doctors

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | feature Wednesday November 10, 2004 16:45 by janette byrne - Patients Together patientstogether at eircom dot net dublin 085 7302798

Patients Together Appeal for Help on A&E Crisis

From The Newswire: My name is Janette Byrne. Up until four weeks ago I had a pretty stress free life -- then my mam was rushed by ambulance to the Mater hospital and everything changed in a day. My mother was very ill and continuously passing out and vomiting. The doctor thought it could be minor strokes.

I will try take you back with me and hope you get a feel for the upset our family and others went through. We arrived at A&E terrified our mother would die even as we travelled. On arrival we found her on a trolley having been moved from a chair as she repeatedly collapsed in my brothers arms. We have since heard of elderly people falling from the chairs and smashing their faces on the ground. The hospital was packed. It was as if some major catastrophe had happened and everyone was panicked. No doctor came to see my mother for a long time and we felt issolated. The staff were rushed off their feet. We were barely able to get their attention for a bed pan and my mother was lucky she had us to help.

We organised to stay on a rota through the night even though we all worked and have families. My mother is a very no-nonsense woman and i have never known her to show fear so when she asked us to stay we knew she was terrified. The noise level is unbelieveable: fights breaking out; phones ringing; unfortunates with drug or alcohol addictions roaring through the night. It is mad. There is one toilet between everyone, no soap, and the winter vomiting bug is rampant. My mother's back was killing her from lying in the one position flat and I asked for an extra pillow, only to be told there were none. There was blood splattered on my mother's trolley and around the floor, not hers might I add. At one stage the nurse could not find a container so my mother could be sick, so she had no choice but to vomit on the floor. It was still there the next night.

When the doctor told us he could not carry out the necessary test on my mother and that he needed her on a ward but could not get her a bed it was like a nightmare returned for me as I had gone to court three years previously to access a bed for myself to get chemotheraphy for my cancer.

It all became to much for us and another family (the Mulreanys whose 84 year old mother lay approx two feet away from my mam). We took to the street for a protest and phoned anyone we could get at short notice. There was about fifty of us with handmade banners our children or friends had produced. It was amazing the support we got and when we went to the main entrance of the hospital to collect signatures, it seemed everyone had a horrible story to tell. The next day we organised a protest to the Dáil with the support of the Irish Nurses Organisation and TDs. We cannot stress enough that we are a non-political group and will take to the streets with anyone who is looking for change to this horrendous problem.

At one stage as we protested outside the hospital someone came running out to tell us our mother had nearly choked on her vomit. We felt guilty for leaving her even for a short spell. The newspapers and telly thank God had an interest in our plight and before long it seemed like we opened a huge can of worms.

TV showed the disgraceful conditions the people in Cavan are suffering with no dignity or privacy. As someone said - animals are treated better. After nearly five days of torture my mother got a bed, at this stage my sister had the bug and my dad was unable to visit my mother as he also was sick and two of the Mulreany family ended up sick -- one taken to the hospital. We were all exhausted and I think my mother summed it up when she said she would rather die than go back there. She ended up with the winter bug and blisters from lying flat. She was also bruised from the trolley's restrictions. All in all, it's something that hangs over all our heads and I always worry that it could be me tomorrow. Please come with us Saturday at 2 oclock when we will march from the Garden of Rememberance to the Dáil to support the hundreds of people across our country who will try to sleep on chairs or trolleys for days - some, as we have heard, spending their last days there. It can't go on. We cannot wait weeks or months for it to be addressed.

We met with the Minister last Friday and she assured us the hygiene area was being addressed as we spoke, changing to a 24/7 rota. I am shocked it had to be higlighted first to be addressed and secondly that it was not in place already. It goes without saying that if the hospital with its crowded space and hygiene problems was a hotel or a bar it would be closed immediately.

I will finish with one of my worst memories: I also was left on a trolley for two days having been told i more than likely had cancer and was facing a life saving operation the next day. I shared a tiny room with two strange men -- a situation i would never put myself in by choice. I walked from my trolley to the outside toilet used by everyone, even those coming in from the street. It was freezing and I was embarassed and frightened, feeling very vunerable in my night dress. I went into the ladies to find a poor unfortunate man lying there shooting up. My legs were shaking as there was no lock on the door. I thought the nightmare would never end. Now remember, I am a young woman and live in a not-so-quiet area of Dublin but can you imagine this happening to your grandmother? It does not bear thinking about. Please, please support us. Give one hour of your time for change.

yours in hope,

Patients Together

Janette Byrne.

Background links:

• Irish Times report on J. Byrne's chemotherapy battle
• RTE report on delayed start of J. Byrnes chemotherapy after court battle
• Dail debate July 2001

  The Minister's (Martin) tenure in the Department of Health and Children has been one of reports, strategy documents, steering groups, project teams, consultative fora, submissions and partnership facilitators. They are all a mechanism to avoid and delay the delivery of services. The Minister has failed to tackle obvious unbelievable shortcomings in the service. -- U. Byrne

  The then Minister for Finance, Deputy Quinn, and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Noonan, sat down and discussed their priorities. They discussed what they wanted to do with the health system and made decisions. The key decision was to cut by 20% the funding dedicated to reducing public waiting lists. The men who now say this is the number one issue which takes priority over everything else put it at the bottom of the pile and, even though they were engaged in a failed attempt to spend their way back into power, chose to implement a decision which directly disadvantaged public patients. -- Martin