Disabled man in wheelchair left ‘curled up’ for hours at University Hospital Limerick
THE FAMILY of a profoundly disabled man have criticised hospital bosses saying he was left “curled up in his wheelchair” for hours in the emergency department.
And they have added that medical staff at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) treated him as “just a body” despite him being in severe pain.
Darragh Ryan, who lives at North Circular Road was admitted to hospital after his father Sean and elder sister Emer became concerned at a potential flare-up.
The 25-year-old suffers from the inflammatory Crohn's disease, and Cerebal Palsy, which affect a person's ability to move and maintain balance and posture.
As he is non-verbal, it means whenever he becomes visibly agitated, Sean and Emer are on high alert.
But after the pair attended the emergency department (ED) with Darragh following a referral from their doctor, they described the treatment of him and other patients as “distressing”.
The pair left the hospital’s ED in disgust after almost 12 hours without being seen, and have instead been forced to book a private appointment to help Darragh.
They claim it came after nurses failed to take blood from Darragh on two occasions.
Sean Ryan said he advised nursing staff it is impossible to take blood from him without sedating him due to his complex medical needs.
In a strongly-worded letter, Emer wrote: "Privacy is non-existent. I witnessed a lot of things and heard a lot of patient information I shouldn’t have to hear as it’s none of my business.”
“Nobody once came over to check on Darragh or anything. It didn’t matter he is disabled – he was viewed as just another body,” Emer added, claiming that she was constantly told by nurses that her brother’s medical issue was “not an emergency”.
“Just because something can’t be viewed physically doesn’t mean there’s not further damage going on inside a person’s body. Time is of the essence and the longer someone is kept waiting, the more damage can occur in someone’s body,” she added.
Emer and Sean were concerned at potentially internal bleeding or issues with Darragh’s stomach lining. Emer outlined a number of other things she says she witnessed in the ED – including toilets being used for people to get dressed and undressed, PPE being used to block out the light, and an elderly man having to use behind his bed to store his personal belongings.
“I witnessed a drunk man wandering down along the aisles tormenting young girls, with an older man having to notify nurses of his behaviour. There’s no such thing as patient confidentiality. I heard a nurse giving out to a patient’s parent saying he needed to be signed into 5B [the hospital’s psychiatric ward]. It’s none of my business to know these private things. They should be disclosed in a room with the patient, not announced to everyone waiting.”
The comments come in a week where the hospital chief executive Colette Cowan faced Oireachtas members following the release of a Hiqa report which was heavily critical of conditions in the ED.
She issued an apology for the “distress” and “lack of dignity” experienced by some patients.
A spokesperson for the University of Limerick Hospitals Group also expressed his apologies to the family, but was unable to go into other specifics.
This, the spokesperson said, is “due to our ethical and legal obligations to protect the privacy of all patients who attend our hospitals and our staff."
Over the past 18 months, UHL has been managing sustained and significantly high numbers of very sick people attending the ED with complex conditions.
"In these circumstances, our ED medical teams must prioritise the patients who require treatment most urgently,” added the spokesperson.