Three separate incidents at Mount Carmel Hospital bring out into the open a situation that puts the administration of local hospitals to shame.
No political assertions and pronouncements, so happily resorted to by politicians in the never-ending political blame game, can ever make up for the glaring shortcomings in local hospitals.
It is mainly thanks to the dedication of the individuals working in the health service that people receive a good service as administrative State backing falls short of expectations and has been a source of much distress.
With a change in Administration, some thought matters would be put right but, of course, it is not that easy to put words into deeds. It never is and, six months after Labour’s massive election victory, people are finding out that the road map the party talked about with such fervour in the election campaign is either non-existent or else was so hastily drawn up that it has had to be scrapped.
This is not the first time that the health service has faced a shortage of nurses but it would seem that the problem has got worse. Strange incidents do happen at mental hospitals everywhere but when these are attributed to a shortage of staff the matter ought to have been tackled with all the seriousness and speed it deserved.
When two patients that ought to have been under constant supervision drank harmful substances and a teenager was found to have been engaging in sexual activity with patients in a mixed ward the nurses at the hospital wrote to the Attorney General renouncing their responsibility for patients’ well-being.
This may appear to be a drastic step to take and it is but what are they expected to do in the situation they have been placed after the election when, according to what they have said, there had been a number of post-election transfers?
The nurses’ statement that the complement “is not even adequate to provide the necessary nursing care for the standard patients let alone for the intensive care patients who usually require more supervision” is indeed most disturbing. In fact, again according to the nurses, the sort of supervision required is rarely being provided because of staff shortages. No wonder the situation was described by their union as a time bomb.
The Health Ministry quickly explained that one-to-one supervision was not always “logistically” possible and, instead, patients were grouped together and supervised by a nurse. But is this arrangement working out well in practice? According to a ministry spokesman, they are now working on developing a psychiatric intensive care unit where such patients can be nursed in a more efficient and effective way.
This is all very well but was it not unwise to effect transfers after the election at such a sensitive hospital? That is, if the nurses are correct in what they have said.
The mind boggles at the shortcomings that continue to crop up at local hospitals. Long waiting times and a shortage of beds, of medicine and, now, even of nurses suggest a most unsatisfactory situation.
The Government has now agreed to take on immediately 140 nurses who graduated recently, prompting the union to say that it had taken a lot “of time, energy and effort to convince the health division on such a simple matter”. Clearly, there ought to be long-term recruitment plans to avoid such hiccups in the service.