A Letterkenny University Hospital patient was asked to lie on the Emergency Department floor after fainting because no bed or chair was available, according to a report in The Irish Times.
Apparently, staff at LUH have been told not to ask patients to lie on the floor following the September 2022 incident.
It’s reported that the man fainted a second time while on the floor and then regained consciousness having suffered a black eye, a nosebleed and a pounding headache. He told The Irish Times that he doesn’t recall what happened to him.
Furthermore, it’s reported that weeks after he visited Letterkenny ED, the patient received a call from the hospital about his son, Adrian even though he does not have a son by this name. It’s claimed he received a second call about “Adrian” the following day.
In response to a complaint made by the patient, he was informed: “This was an administrative error and should not have occurred.” It’s reported that a consultant who examined the complaint explained the patient’s injuries by stating he “slid from the chair in a controlled fashion. He was helped by two people and was for trolley transfer but regained consciousness in a few seconds. He walked to the plinth to lie in [the] supine position for further observation and a blood sample to be re-attempted but while he was waiting he fell from the plinth again and fell on to his forehead with brief loss of consciousness and minor self-limiting epistaxis [nosebleed].”
Also in error, a month later the same patient received a further phone call from a consultant at the hospital telling him to come in for an operation. According to The Irish Times, the hospital apologised to the patient last July for “deficits in care”.
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