Son of ‘frozen’ dementia patient says UHL unprepared for weather

A County Clare man has claimed the UL Hospitals Group hasn’t prepared for the cold weather after his “frozen” 86-year-old father, who has dementia, was forced to wear his coat in an old ward at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

After spending almost three days on a trolley, the elderly man was transferred to a Ward 4 C in the old part of UHL on Saturday of December 3 at 11pm.

“My father, who has dementia had to wear his coat in a hospital bed during the cold weather. Because my father is elderly, he feels the cold more than other people. He doesn’t have blankets, he only has a sheet and a blue cover. You need about ten blue covers to equal one blanket.”

The man, who has opted to remain anonymous for family reasons, recalled when he visited his father the next day, he found he was “frozen”.

After discovering the two radiators close to his father’s bed were turned off, he turned them on and closed the window.

He found his father was still frozen the following day and got just one extra thin cover, which he felt would need to be increased tenfold to be the equivalent of a blanket.

On Monday night of last week, he found his father was still very cold so he brought the state of the radiators to the attention of staff as one of them was leaking and the others were not working properly.

After raising this issue with a business manager, he claimed that she pledged to treat it as an emergency issue but adopted a more nonchalant casual approach following another telephone conversation in the afternoon.

Having visited his father again on Tuesday night, he confirmed the heating was now working. However, he asked why did it take someone like him to complain before this issue was addressed three days later.

In view of the advent of winter and recent warnings about a cold snap, he said someone in maintenance should have ensured all the radiators were bled to reduce the possibility of air locks and stressed radiators should be checked to ensure they were all working efficiently.

The dementia patient went into UHL for an eye day case procedure on Thursday when it was discovered his blood pressure was very low. After a stumble, he was referred to the ED on Thursday at 2pm, which his son described as “disgusting and appalling”.

“There is no dignity or privacy in the ED. I heard a doctor talking to a woman in her eighties talking about her toilet habits, which everyone is listening to.

“The humanity of staff is drained. They are overworked, underpaid and exhausted because it is relentless.

“You couldn’t get another trolley in the ED if you tried. There were trolleys across doorways, the toilet. Most of the patients were very elderly with dementia and all sorts of other ailments.

“There were trolleys on each side of every corridor with patients. There was ten people on trolleys on one short corridor. There was about 20 around the next corner and ten around the next one,” he said.

He estimated there can be up to 16 trolley movements to make space for a patient who needs to go for an x-ray when four trolleys that are in the way have to be moved back and forth multiple times into new positions and their original position.

He called for investment to upgrade Ennis and Nenagh Hospitals to facilitate the reopening of the 24-hour casualty cover.

“While we are waiting for another UHL hospital extension, how many people will die prematurely or have a prolonged stay in ED?

“My father has dementia and he was supposedly looked after by someone sitting next to him when I wasn’t there to ensure he didn’t get up and fall or wander off,” he said.

However, the man claimed this person was multi-tasking so there were times when his father was left on his own; a high back chair for his father to sit on disappeared and eventually he got very upset because his father had spent almost three days in a trolley.

Even though the dementia patient was allocated a bed in a ward that became vacant at 5pm, it couldn’t be released for use because it hadn’t been cleaned.

At around 9pm, his son was getting very upset about the delayed transfer so he spoke to a manager who contacted staff involved in bed management.

After contacting a nurse, he discovered the bed still wasn’t cleaned. He then rang the ward from the ED to speak to someone to find what was going on.

He said it seemed as if staff were so busy with basic duties, they were not addressing issues such as ensuring the bed is quickly cleaned to ensure a quick turnaround for the next patient.

“The same thing happened two nights ago. A patient left at 11pm but the ward will not do the handover until the bed is cleaned. Things are going pear shaped for the nursing staff in the ED because they can’t transfer patients because the upstairs vacant bed isn’t cleaned.

“As soon as a patient leaves a bed, if the bed is cleaned immediately, another patient from ED can use it. The system isn’t working. The only reason my father eventually got a bed was because I kicked up about it.”

In a recent interview, the Chief Clinical Director of the UL Hospitals’ Group Professor Brian Lenehan said they wanted a scenario where patients can avail of a bed in the shortest possible time, reduce their length of stay in the ED, have a focus on their length of stay when they are an in-patient, get patients discharged when they are fit to leave and try to remove all the barriers and delays there.

He outlined UHL has secured funding to hire additional non-consultant hospital doctors and consultants in the ED. However, he acknowledged it would take some time for these doctors to be recruited and start working in the ED.

“Key to the whole thing will be the implementation of the Safer Staffing Model for nurses in the ED, which will see up to 30 additional nurses being recruited to work in the ED.
“All of these measures taken together should improve patient care and patient flow, I would hope,” he said.