I recently had to attend Letterkenny University Hospital with my wife to support a relative of hers who was very unwell.
I saw an Emergency Department overcrowded with patients in corridors, and in cubicles, being attended to by a very exhausted and overstretched medical staff.
At the ambulance entrance there were many ambulance personnel with their patients waiting to be seen, while other personnel and patients waited in ambulances outside.
One member of the ambulance personnel told me they had been waiting five hours to hand over their patient to the medical staff.
How can the Government or the Minister for Health tell people that waiting lists are coming down, or that we have an efficient system in place when a half dozen ambulance personnel await to offload their patients in an overcrowded ED, or when those sitting in corridors wait for endless hours to be seen or get admitted?
A simple solution to free up ambulances is to have a waiting hub outside the ED where ambulance personnel could offload patients, who would be seen by a triage nurse, who in turn would decide the next course of action and free up those ambulance personnel to resume their duties.
Too many people attending ED could and should be seen at local clinical level rather than being referred to their nearest EDs.
Smaller former hospitals in the extremities of Donegal should be reopened and staffed to deal with minor injuries or ailments.
As the number of patients increase as a result of winter bugs, an over inbibement by Christmas party goers, or walk-ins, small tweaks like those aforementioned might be of some assistance and help alleviate the already overcrowded EDs and help staff and patients alike.
I wish our overstretched medical staff and ambulance personnel a very merry and peaceful Christmas, as I do all frontline personnel.
Christy Galligan,
Letterkenny.
