Seán officially requests Health and Safety Inspectors to inspect St. Luke’s A&E
Issued : Wednesday 20 April, 2005
Areas : Kilkenny
Seán calls for Health and Safety Authority to inspect A&E facilities in St. Luke's hospital following failure of Health Services Executive to fund Outpatients Unit
A Kilkenny Labour Councillor has officially requested that the Health and Safety Authority inspect the Accident and Emergency facilities at St. Luke’s General Hospital which serves the Carlow and Kilkenny area. This follows the publication of the HSA report into eleven A&E units around the country, many of which have led to reports to the local fire officers regarding obstruction of Emergency Exits. Cllr. Seán Ó hArgáin has claimed that many of the problems complained of in the Authority’s report also exist in St. Luke’s Hospital. He was informed by the HSA that a further four hospitals would be inspected, hut the Authority refused to name the hospitals involved “in order to protect the integrity of the inspection process”
“As recently as last Thursday, I attended the unit with my son as a patient and found that the conditions I highlighted in recent months have not been addressed. Among the problems which need immediate attention are the fact that the only Emergency exit is currently covered with a curtain, and is part of a cubicle in which patients are treated. It then opens onto a totally inadequate stepped exit, which a wheelchair or stretcher would find impossible to negotiate.
The unit has no dedicated resuscitation area, and the area in which cardiac emergencies are now dealt with is also the entrance to the storage area for all staff, a tiny space that also doubles as the changing area and food area for the staff. The unit’s reception area is effectively in a public corridor, with sick patients and their relatives forced to give intimate details without any privacy. The unit also lacks the most basic facility of a bed-pan washer, with staff currently forced to carry out this piece of basic hygiene in an open sink, which must also double as the area for cleaning medical utensils, in the absence of a sterilisation unit.
I am calling again on the Minister for Health, Mary Harney T.D. to come and see at first hand the serious safety issues which exist in the converted laundry which serves 30,000 patients a year. It also defies logic that the Health and Safety Authority would not send an inspector to the unit.
I have called for the hospital to immediately be given the €3.5 million funding for its badly-needed Outpatients facility. This would then allow the A&E unit to expand into the existing space and to be trebled in size. The current situation is not acceptable. Ironically, the hospital is being held up as a model of best practice, as a result of having introduced the Medical Assessment Unit, an example that is being followed by the major hospitals in Dublin. It seems that the hospital is being punished however, by the failure to fund a 21st. Century Outpatients and Accident and Emergency service. The criteria for sending the inspectors to hospitals are that they should have patients on trolleys. After that the Health Authorities don’t care about the actual safety and comfort of patients. The staff in St. Luke’s are doing a tremendous job, but now need the political will to be there to deliver the services the people of the area need”
See report at http://www.hsa.ie/files/file_20050420102820aereport.pdf
Cllr 
