THERE CAN BE few people nowadays who are unaware of the miseries faced by patients and staff in our health service ‘frontline’ due to understaffing, lack of space, lengthy public waiting lists and dwindling access to general practitioners.

Indeed, it’s not unusual to hear someone describing their experience in a hospital emergency department (EDs) as absolutely ‘hellish’.

At the risk of seeming pedantic, I suggest a better word to describe this experience is ‘purgatorial’. Purgatory — to remind some readers — is a largely Roman Catholic concept of a place of temporary suffering, where souls are prepared for entry to Heaven.

So am I resorting to a religious rationale to explain the problem? Certainly not, but I am seeking an apt analogy for a new 21st-century ‘certainty’. In short, while many who are admitted to hospitals are satisfied with the inpatient care they eventually receive, huge numbers presenting to our EDs are now ‘required’ — not by religious but by political doctrine — to experience brutalising conditions before they reach the Nirvana of an inpatient ward, outpatient clinic or a (newly ‘heavenly’) home.

Advertisement

Sadly, ED overcrowding is not just deeply unpleasant, but it can occasionally be lethal. Every few months, the media report cases of apparently avoidable deaths (due to delays in seeing subtle signs of infection, stroke or bleeding amidst a crowd of distressed individuals), but such cases are just the tip of an iceberg. In early 2023, the Irish Times reported that almost 1,300 patients died over........

© TheJournal