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By Eoin Kelleher
A ROSCREA photographer has become a local champion of patients' rights after bringing in his own sleeping bag to Limerick Regional hospital, just so he could finally get the treatment he was forced to wait three months for.
PJ Wright, well known around Roscrea in his role as a photographer, became so fed up with having his operation postponed due to the chronic lack of bed spaces, that he had to resort to telling sympathetic ward nurses he was bedding down for the night in his own sleeping bag. And to add to the chaos, PJ spent eight nights in hospital over a 3-month period waiting for his operation: four of these nights in a bed which should have been used for someone else.
PJ's ordeal, which started with a 4-night stint in hospital when all he needed was a 10-minute check up, began back in early February when he was told by his doctor to visit the A&E in Limerick Regional for a medical examination as his symptoms had re-appeared. But instead of a brief examination, PJ was ushered through A&E to a room in a hospital, from where he would begin waiting for three and a half days before being told the doctor he was visiting wasn't even in the hospital. The final indignity came when he was told he had to pay a E40 parking charge.
PJ's experience of waiting for days on end, sitting watching the clock while overstretched nurses and doctors busied around him will be all too familiar to many inpatients to our hospitals.
I was put in a chair and sat there from 12 o'clock until 5 o'clock; a Junior Doctor came and examined me and gave me an injection and I had to wait until 9 o'clock again that night, says PJ. I was given a trolley. I got up to get a drink of water and when I got back, the trolley was gone. An understanding nurse told him: that's what's it's like in A&E. If there's a free trolley, there's someone else always after it.
Waiting and waiting, PJ was put into a room, while outside, the A&E seemed like a cattle mart with no separation between patients lying on trolleys, he told the Tipperary Star.
As the hours turned into days, PJ took an empty trolley, telling staff: I'm looking after myself. After midnight, he was transferred to a main ward. From Monday until Friday while PJ waited, each day expecting surgery, nobody informed his doctor that PJ was even in the hospital.
Thinking he would be operated on that Tuesday, an A&E doctor told him action would soon be taken. On Wednesday, nothing happened. On Thursday, PJ thought the time had definitely come, but was eventually told in the evening his doctor, Dr Waldon, was not in the hospital. I blew my top and let them know in no uncertain terms that I'd been here in a bed since Tuesday.
Come Friday morning after a sleepless night, PJ was ready for the operation. However, his doctor had to apologise to him explaining that he had only just been informed PJ was in the hospital half an hour earlier. By this time, PJ's symptoms had abated. He was personally assured following this saga that if they did re-appear, he could count on a team of specialists so he would be seen to promptly.
'Still No Bed'
About a month later, PJ's symptoms returned. Dr Waldon scheduled an operation for the 19th of April. Again, PJ had to ring ahead to see if a bed was available. I rang at 11. No bed. I rang at 12, no bed, I rang at one, no bed. Then he was told to come in first thing on Tuesday, only to be told he wasn't a suitable candidate for the operation.
PJ then discovered his operation had been cancelled. Calling his doctor, he discovered it had been cancelled by Admissions as there were no beds left. Finally, another operation was organised, and PJ was put on the list for a procedure- the next Monday. Admissions told him: That doesn't mean there'll be a bed here next week either. PJ told them he would be coming in next Monday - bed or no bed.
The following Monday came - the 26th - and I made arrangements to come down. My wife was a bit upset that I was going down under duress. You have to be relaxed going into an operation. I rang the hospital on Monday morning, and the same story: no bed. I informed them, I'm on the way down now and bringing my own bed.
PJ arrived at 2pm to the ward with his sleeping bag under his arm. A nurse told him he would have to go back down to check with Admissions. Returning downstairs with his trusty sleeping bag, PJ waited patiently once again until a doctor came. Dr Frazier came in and congratulated me and said 'I like your style'.
On Tuesday, after a night in his sleeping bag, PJ underwent the operation to the admiration of all the nurses and doctors. The staff are taking care of people but somewhere the system isn't functioning. After it all, PJ stresses the professionalism of the hospital personnel despite the system being so under-resourced. The nurses were absolutely brilliant. They were working flat out. But there are too many chiefs in administration. And everybody seems to getting an appointment for 10 o'clock in the morning. The buck has to stop at the top.
PJ says the sleeping bag protest was done for all those patients who have been left to wait for days and months not knowing their fate. There are people with a lot more serious conditions than mine, with cancer, and they're worrying at home: 'am I getting worse?'
'Less Rights than Prisoners'
Recovering this week, PJ hopes to make a full return to health. Highlighting the fact that at one stage in February, he was needlessly occupying a valuable bed which may have been needed by another patient, PJ says: I was in a bed when all I needed was a 10-minute examination. And it was a tenner a day for parking. I told them I was leaving the hospital and I wasn't paying E40.
PJ describes some of the conditions he witnessed in the hospital as Dickensian. Many of the handsoap bottles were empty while he was there. Patients were packed into wards. These were all surgical cases. Fifteen in the one ward, with two toilets in the middle. It was like a dormitory from Dickens. The A&E was like a cattle mart. There was no separation between people. PJ adds that while prisoners in our jails have some rights, patients have less rights than prisoners.
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