The A&E wards of Irish hospitals are a disaster because patients must wait for hours before being seen by a doctor. Many cannot take the wait and leave.
In January and February alone, 14,500 left the A&E. They were registered but left before treatment. The average waiting time in emergency departments is 11.4 hours.
Many of these patients will have been sent by a GP but they will still wait for long hours. Yet the GP will have supplied a letter indicating that they need to be seen.
The failure to organise a functioning emergency health service shows just how little this government cares. We need a radical change of policy.
• We need to pay our doctors and nurses properly and ensure they do not emigrate because of terrible conditions.
• We need to take the private hospitals under public control and integrate them into the health service.
