Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to humanise this issue because we are all well aware of what is happening in University Hospital Waterford. Shauna Aylward describes hell on Earth. She spent three months in the unit earlier this year. She stated:

I had no idea of what I would expect, I had no idea it would be like that. I thought this would be somewhere I could get help, somewhere I would feel safe and could get better. Unfortunately what I witnessed was a disgrace.

She said she saw a patient being dragged naked down a corridor to be put in the seclusion room and stated: "I was too scared to go to the dining area to eat ... I was starving and I began to feel institutionalised." She said conditions at the unit were sometimes so bad that "you could go out of the ward and come back and your bed was occupied by a new patient". She added, "I didn't need to be pumped full of meds, I just needed somebody to talk to me."

A spokesman for the HSE said it does not comment on individual cases. This is not an individual case, as there are so many patients affected by this. It is an absolute and utter disgrace. I wish we could have some clear indication of who is responsible for the appalling treatment of these people.

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