Professor Brian Lenehan:

HIQA saw pictures that none of us would want to see. They came to the emergency department with a significant number of patients in the waiting area who had waited some time for triage. Our emergency department is split into zones. Zone A is for ambulatory patients who are managed as category three or four. Zones B and C are still Covid pathways. Patients who have any symptoms or signs of Covid, or who have any risk of infectious disease, be that CPE, C. diff, or MRSA, are all in zones B and C. When the inspectors entered, they saw 49 or 50 trolleys, as well as the cubicles at capacity. Those patients who required isolation were in the cubicles and the remainder of the patients were on trolleys in the emergency department. The inspectors came in and looked at the number of nurses that were there. Through vacancies and short-term illness and last-minute sickness, there was a deficit in the number of nurses available to look after those patients. We had redeployed additional nurses, and we do have healthcare attendants who also support our nurses in the care of our patients. This all challenged the emergency department. It is something we have been working tirelessly to try to address. As I said earlier, with the incremental changes we have been making in the past two to three months we have seen a reduction in the number of trolleys. It is not our aspiration to treat patients on trolleys. The inspectors also saw trolleys on our wards. The challenge in our emergency department was such that we had patients on trolleys on our wards. We have not had a patient on a trolley on our wards for the past six weeks. That was one of the first steps we took. We are in a better position than we were, and we will continue to work to improve that for the care of our patients and for the health and well-being of our staff.