Minister slams MUH for not discharging patients promptly

Mayo University Hospital management has come under fire from the Minister for Health.

Speaking in the Dáil last week, Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill spoke of a recent unscheduled visit to the Castlebar hospital.

"There were 47 patients in the emergency department. Of those patients, 20 had been admitted for beds, but there was no discharging going on up the hospital.

"Mayo University Hospital remained red all through August, which is completely unacceptable. Last weekend, there was not sufficient work being done to discharge during the weekend.

"There were 16 discharges in the hospital on Saturday, there was one on Sunday and there were 47 on Monday,” said the Minister.

She pointed to an ‘imbalance’ of staffing rather than a lack of staff.

"The only explanation is that there is an imbalance in staffing. I was there on a random Saturday in August and the emergency department was absolutely overwhelmed. There was a serious patient safety issue there. 

"The rest of the hospital was completely empty. There were practically no diagnostics going on. There were not even people in the diagnostics area.

"The hospital is not understaffed but it has an understaffing area in the emergency department, specifically because it is not being correctly staffed on the other side,” she stated. "Let us not confuse ourselves; this is not a staffing issue in Mayo hospital. It has one of the best staffing ratios of all of the Model 3 hospitals,” the Minister added.

However, Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway-Walsh, who met members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) last week, rejected the claim that the hospital has enough staff.

"I have very direct experience of being in the emergency department in Mayo University Hospital in the last number of weeks. I commend the staff there for the job they are doing but they are expected to do that job even though there are not enough of them."

She said the Minister’s insistence that there is a 32% increase in staff at the hospital is not borne out.

“I am telling her that there are not enough staff in the emergency department to provide safe service there.

"I am also telling the Minister that it is a deterrent for so many people who want to, and probably need to, go to hospital. They want to do everything to stay out of hospital.

"Those nurses and other staff members are absolutely run off their feet.

"They are expected to operate on a corridor with trolleys each side of it, patients in pain moaning, looking for help and trying to get a bed when they cannot get a bed, yet the minister is telling me the hospital has enough staff.” 

Deputy Paul Lawless has said nursing staff are “exhausted beyond measure".

“Student nurses are telling me openly that the system to support them simply doesn’t exist. This is not how you build a workforce - it is how you break one.” He said mismanagement cannot be allowed to happen.

“Mayo needs management that will take responsibility for these failures. If they will not, they must be shown the door. Our nurses and doctors cannot keep shouldering the consequences of mismanagement. And Mayo families cannot be left to wonder if their loved ones will receive proper care simply because illness strikes on a Saturday night instead of a Monday morning.”