John Brady: Patient Left in A&E Shower After Suspected Stroke
John Brady confronted the Taoiseach about a patient from Wicklow who, after a suspected mini-stroke, was told to go home and then returned to wait for hours in St Vincent's A&E. He says the man was ultimately seated in a shower room with other patients because there were no beds, and demanded answers on clinical decisions and hospital management.
What happened
John Brady details the case of a vulnerable patient who was initially told nothing would happen over the weekend and asked to return on Monday. On his return the patient waited through the day and was later admitted to A&E only to be placed on a chair in a shower room with four other men and a woman due to lack of space.
Clinical concern
Brady highlights the clinical worry that someone with a suspected stroke should never be sent home initially. He presses the Taoiseach on whether complaints were made and stresses that clinical outcomes must be tracked when protocols appear to have failed.
Management and accountability
The speech focuses on hospital management and the allocation of existing resources. Brady accepts that investment and reform have been made but argues that internal management within hospitals must deliver dignity and safe care now.
Wider consequences
This exchange raises broader questions about overcrowding in A&E departments across the state, the protection of patient dignity, and the systems for reporting and responding to failures in care. Brady calls for immediate action from government and hospital managers to prevent a repeat.
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Last Friday, a concision of mine from Wicklow presented to St Vincent's A&E Hospital after suffering a suspected mini-stroke. He was vulnerable, afraid, but after being seen, he was told nothing would happen over the weekend. He was told to go home and come back on Monday. He did exactly that, Taoiseach. Yesterday morning, he came back as instructed. He then waited hour after hour. As morning turned to night, by midnight, he was still left sitting there in an A&E absolutely bursting at the seams. Then the reality of it came after being admitted. There was no beds, not even a trolley. He was given a chair and placed in a shower room within A&E with four other men and a woman, all of them patients, all left sitting because there was nowhere else to put them. And they were left there for several more hours. That is not care, Taoiseach. That is not dignity. And it's totally, totally unacceptable. So can I ask you, under your watch, as this is happening, what are you doing in the here and now to address this crisis within our A&Es, not just here in St Vincent's down the road, but right across the state? Huge investment in reform has gone into A&E services. And we do need to focus in on the management of those resources within given hospitals. You said the person had a stroke. Yeah, well, the person, any person with a stroke should not be sent home in the first instance. That's a clinical issue. And that's what would jump out at me immediately. And then to come back a couple of days later. And that is a worry from a clinical outcome perspective. And that's the first thing I would say. And I don't know whether the person has made a complaint or whether you've made a complaint on behalf of the person. I think that should happen. Because then we can track and get answers and get responses. That shouldn't happen. There's no excuse for that.
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