Cancer patient left on trolley at Limerick hospital days after terminal diagnosis

A CANCER patient was forced to endure over 30 hours on a trolley at University Hospital Limerick, just days after he was given a terminal diagnosis.

And in a separate case, an 86-year-old pensioner was left on a trolley for a total of 152 hours – more than six days – with an injured hip.

In an interview with the Leader this week, close family members of the 73-year-old cancer patient from Limerick said that he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the first week of February.

The pensioner also has tumours in his femur, the source said, adding that palliative care is the “only option”.

The man had been receiving “great care” at Ennis Hospital until he was transferred to a radiologist at University Hospital Limerick on February 14, last Friday.

However, within an hour, he was contacted by doctors in Ennis and was urged to attend the emergency department at UHL for a surgery.

The patient then spent 31 hours on a trolley before he got a bed, the family source said. He was on a trolley from 4.30pm until 11am or 12 noon the following day. 

“He was on a trolley and all during the night, I stayed with him myself. I’d say around 4.30am, we were transferred up to a ward but he was still in the trolley.”

At the time of the interview, the patient was still in UHL, waiting for a scan. 

Speaking about his emotional state, the family member said: “He is always so positive and is more worried about us, and the inconvenience of us going in and out of the hospital. But he is in a lot of pain now. He is in excrutiating pain.”

The source said that he has been “feeling hopeless” and everyone in the family is “stressed out. He is distressed. He just wants to go home, and we just want be home with him.”

In the case of the 86-year-old pensioner, she presented to the emergency department last Tuesday at 2pm, and was on a trolley until this Monday at 10.30pm, which is almost a full week.

Close family members said that she was referred to the emergency department by a GP due to ongoing issues with her hip and was suffering with constipation.

They told the Leader this week that she was waiting for an isolation room. They have hit out at the lack of resourcing in UHL, and that the pensioner was in major discomfort while on a trolley for six days.

“She is very frustrated,” the family member said. 

“If we had any sense, we’d probably be better off going to Belfast or over to the UK to try and get treated quicker.”

He added: “We all know that it is bad. The healthcare profession knows that it’s bad. Politicians know that it is bad. But it has become acceptable.”

Both families wished to remain anonymous in the media about their loved ones’ care.

A spokesperson for the UL Hospitals Group said that it regrets that any patient, particularly elderly, faces a long wait for a bed. 

He said that they are unable to discuss specific details due to ethical obligations and legal requirements under GDPR. He said that over the past week, UHL has experienced high levels of ED presentations and are implementing escalation measures for patients.

“Demand for isolation facilities presents an additional challenge for UHL, as the hospital has only a limited numbers of single rooms. When demand for these isolation facilities is high, as it was last week, patients requiring isolation will often spend a period of their hospital stay in an isolation room within ED.”

The €19.5m 60-bed modular block is due for completion by the end of 2020. The spokesperson said that a planning application for the €25m 96-bed block is due to be submitted later this year.

“None of the above minimises our regret that any patient, especially the frail and elderly, has to wait on a trolley for admission.”

In a statement this Wednesday, the UL Hospitals spokesperson said that prolonged waits in the emergency department, such as the two cases, “do not reflect the level of care we wish to provide, and we sincerely apologise to them and their loved ones”.