Minister for Health Leo Varadkar and Dr Rhona Mahony at the opening of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, Dublin, February 2015
Not so fast.
A report by the Health Information and Quality Authority on the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street in Dublin has found overcrowding and very poor hygiene. To wit:
Oh.
READ: Report of inspections at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street
HIQA finds poor hygiene and overcrowding at Holles Street hospital (RTÉ)
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please, Rhona was busy in BTs that day collecting a new outfit for a shoot with the Sindo
you hardly expect the nurses to behave in her absence? then again Rhona never cracks the whip on the sacred nurses.
Yeah, cheek of those doctors, spending their entire lives learning and continuing to learn about new drugs, procedures after getting nearly 600 points in the leaving. And then, do you know what those doctors do? They work for days straight as interns and juniors, never even getting an hours sleep. Pr1cks.
And the women? The women are the worst of them, especially if they’re any good at their jobs. How dare they rise to the top of a profession they were marginalised in for years? The bastards. They should be forced to wear whatever is on special offer last week on Lidl. And they certainly shouldn’t be somehow acknowledged for their contribution. Back into the kitchen with them.
Thank goodness we have a world class, highly funded healthcare system in spite of those charlatan doctors and backsliding nurses. Imagine what it would be like if we didn’t fund it properly? I fear to think what would happen if the HSE lost another middle manager. They might spend the money on a cleaner, or something equally worthless. God forbid.
World class, highly funded, manky hospitals. And Irish doctors and nurses who mostly emigrate.
You’re a sexist.
I’d imagine Baz is the sort of person would be just as quick to insult her awful outfits if she made no effort than when she does make an effort. Making an effort is a sign of a bad woman. Not making an effort is the sign of a bad woman.
Rhona failed on the most basic, no hand wash audit
It’s a primary requirement
and yet also one of the unsafest to not want to have a baby
‘splashes of organic matter’ in the delivery suites
:(
Just beetroot juice from the obstetrician’s sandwiches.
Tasty…
Hipsters are into placenta omelets. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/10/eating-your-placenta-healthy-motherhood-new-mothers-infants-postpartum-depression-placentophagy-fda
Sure didn’t the virgin Mary, queen of the universe, give birth in a stable.
Why do the women of Ireland think they’re better than the mother of our lord, the baby jesus.
Seems to be definitely a staff issue rather than a resourcing one.
More likely a combination – if cleaners are outsourced to external companies for example, this tends to mean they aren’t as well trained in cleaning hospitals, ward sisters have less control over them and they are tied into tighter cleaning schedules. Less nurses mean less people with time to keep on top of things etc etc
As I said, a staffing issue, not a resources one. Nothing here suggests its an outsourcing issue. Hire better staff, clean the place properly, store things correctly, segregate things as best practice suggests. Totally a management issue. But easier to blame the poor “outsourced” people on minimum wage rather than Rhona bling and her overpaid layers of HSE staff.
As I said, it is both. Hospitals told to save money, hospitals fire workers who are considered to be expendable – ward clerks, porters, cleaners. These are always the first to go and are outsourced to private companies (of course with no connection to politicians or their mates or anything do with how we are told “Well, the HSE just eats up your money don’t you know) and because they have greater turnoff and less time employed, end up costing more money. it’s not blame, it’s experience of being a hospital cleaner.
Rhona’s “bling” is what she agreed to be paid with her employer given her high level of skill for the job. I wouldn’t be so childish as it take that out of her rather than on structural issues across the health system, which includes too many managers yes, that need to be addressed rather than palmed off as the fault of one solitary employee.
Costs money to hire better staff though doesn’t it?
Well Rhona wasn’t so forthcoming when it was discovered that what they were paying for the job wasn’t enough and that she was topping it up with nice private work.
The point here is that the quality of the cleaning staff is the responsibility of the management. In a private company, this would just not be tolerated. But public money seems to attract a different set of sensibilities where lower standards are tolerated (often exemplified by management). Tony O Brien said it all last week with hi exasperation at not being able to fire anyone. Until this happens, we will get lazy management and all that stems from it.
Nail and head. The root cause of the incompetence of the Irish public service is that no-one can be fired.
Dr works in both private and public sector shocker!! They all do that you know right? And why wouldn’t they when Ireland has a two-tier health system anyway?
“The point here is that the quality of the cleaning staff is the responsibility of the management.”
Yes, and as I said, if you have super busy nurses, they don’t have time to check up on things, what with their hands up a woman’s foof where it should be. It should the responsibility of management in that it is keep in house where quality is maintained and workers have better rights. And I bet my right arm that the cleaners are not employed inhouse.
“In a private company, this would just not be tolerated.”
Lol, ok, it completely is tolerated in this situation. Private companies are a pox on our health system, not a panacea. They do not care about quality as long as they get paid. They do not care about staff as long as they win the tender and can be seen to be doing an ok job for the cheapest price they possibly can. If they need to cut corners to do so? Even better.
I would suggest to you Tony that you don’t know the realities of working in the health system in Ireland or on a hospital ward at all. Lucky us immigrants do eh?
Ancient, overcrowded and not fit for purpose facilities cannot be kept clean.
+1
And that
This is the essence of the glue that clogs the HSE. This is 100% attributing to waiting times and poor services.
The job of a nurse is not to clean beds and the job of porter is not to move waste. These are things that should be limited in their need though correct operational plans, efficient hospital design and an awareness of all staff of their roles, and awareness cost.
Procurement needs to be considered, of goods and contracts. Staff roles need to be defined, and added to.
I have said it 1000s of times…. the HSE needs a 20 to 30 year implementation plan, not a mop and budget. These outcomes are 100% down to ministerial and management failures.
I think I might run for minister. Picking a party is the hard part.
Staff roles need to be defined, and NOT added to.
absolutely. nurses work their butts off, they don’t need to have cleaning rotas added to their load.
Intensive care designed and staffed for 36 babies trying to cater for 46
Insufficient space for food prep
You can’t blame the staff for the above.
Also, a second inspection was to take place before Christmas, any sign of the results of this?
Both my kids were delivered in Holles St, Cramped and unhygenic is how I would have described it eight odd years ago. Heavily pregnant women were expected to sit in a cramped corridor made of linked portacabins. On the good days their partners might get to sit beside them during the two hour wait but more often than not the partners would be standing opposite them meaning anyone trying to get up or down the corridor had to squeeze through and there’d be about twenty pregnant women standing in the check-in area (All admin and paperwork took place within the main hospital building naturally). Honestly though, the staff did the best they could with the resources they had available, I’m guessing they couldn’t exactly turn patients away.
The first birth was alright, the midwife did the delivery and my wife got plenty of time to recover (this was about eight years ago and semi private) . By the time the second one arrived (six ish years back and public due to a change in circumstances) it was an entirely different story. She arrived in crutches to be induced and the snotbag senior midwife on the ward treated my wife like a massive inconvenience because she needed to pee and couldn’t walk unassisted. They messed up an epidural during the delivery (made a few tries and gave up), then after the delivery when my wife slipped and fell in the shower no one answered the emergency cord she pulled and then less than 24 hours later there was an admin goon in pressuring the women to leave – many of whom were happy to since even sitting in an abrakebabra at midnight would be a better, quieter, less stressful environment to rest in (and better food too).
The medical staff, for the most part, did the best they could with the time and resources they had available but you could see that the system was at breaking point even then. There simply wasn’t room for the patients and there was no chance for proper standards to be maintained without making the crowding and backlog even worse.
That’s horrendous. I had a horrible birth on my daughter and rather an unpleasant experience in the Rotunda but it was not on a par with this. How dreadful for you and your wife.
If you are pregnant, please stop reading this now!
My wife was in labour for 36 hours at Holles St. (semiprivate) 16 years ago. They would not entertain the idea of c-section and she was very fortunate to stand up again after the barbaric work they did. 6 years later, during the 2nd pregnancy, the damages re-surfaced and it was clear that she might not walk again if she was forced to go for natural birth. Still they would not entertain a section, until I questioned their position in a registered letter, then everything changed and they suddenly became concerned and collaborative.
Still, after a second opinion confirmed the risk, we went private in Mt. Carmel and the section worked great. The wife every once in a while still has serious back problems.
I find Ireland medieval when it comes to medical treatment of pregnant women.
I had my daughter almost 3 months early in the Rotunda, I was 29 weeks pregnant, and was admitted with bleeding. I was seen to almost immediately, which was great. I was given steroids and the staff, who felt that the bleeding would lead to placental rupture, tried their hardest to keep the baby from coming, and were very attentive despite being obviously overworked. In the end, the baby was born by c-section.
It was after this, that I found that standards dropped. Less than 24 hours after major abdominal surgery, upon wanting to see my daughter, I asked for a porter to bring me to the NICU, which was one floor above, I was told to try and walk up and that all the porters were busy. It took me almost half an hour to go up one storey. When I got to the ICU I had begun to bleed again and was in such excruciating pain that I couldn’t stand. This was just one, and the worst, incident among a number I experienced, as well as what I witnessed among some staff towards other women on the ward. Not all staff were like this, just a few, and the dedication shown by the majority of staff was exemplary and they should be commended highly for the job they are attempting to do.
Babe came before xmas in Horror St. I could write all day about the bad experiences at the hospital, but in summary, the delivery went well and baby okay. Wife very ill after and nobody cared less or did anything till we started to outline how we felt they were legally negligent. You get the sense that they work towards two statistics – deliver baby alive and record mother as exclusively breastfeeding (even when its obviously not the case). Once they get that, a woman could be walking around the hospital with limbs fallings off and be directed out the front door.
Yes. once the delivery suites are full, they should shut the doors of the hospital and not let anyone else in until the next child is born. Then take in the next person.
I assume you don’t have any children since you don’t appear to understand how the process works.
Oh you’re one of those people. Well done for procreating. You have all the answers to life now. You’re valid now.
This is a great solution, I can see no problems.
*clenches vagina tightly*
The child shall not come unless I damn well say so!
*contracts*
Actually…
Don’t worry, Cian is there with a nice mop and bucket to sop up all that amniotic fluid. He’s the lackey who has to tell women in the throes of labour that they have to form an orderly queue. I would pay good money to see how long he lasted.
Feck it. Wait until you’re about to pop, drive down the road a bit then call the Fire Brigade. They’ll be around to you in no time and deliver the baba and stick it on Twitter.
Happy days.
Added bonus: hot firemen all up in your coocha and your fella can’t get mad!!
Nice
Been in there a number of time, always amazed how filth the place was. The mens toilet on the ground floor – remininscent of the toilet in the centre of a victorian tenement.
Nurses don’t care, they have degrees now and hygiene is beneath their interest
@CJ
…or way beyond their remit.
None of my relatives/friends who work as nurses ever thought they trained all those years to clean up pee. I must pass on your concerns, but is it okay if I translate it into English first?
All of my babies were delivered without any pain and under little duress.
It was just like any other day really.
My girlfriends disagree.
Ireland is pretty safe as these things go.
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=2223
Ireland squeezing into 6th place ahead of Germany, Norway and Switzerland and also demonstrating a maternal mortality rate half of our neighbours in the UK.
I wouldn’t be too confident with that source. This is more accurate (below), especially since the collected CMDE/MMBRACE data is more robust and valid than the previously collated CSO figures. The numbers in this report are almost double what the indexmundi, above, is showing.
:http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/new-report-reveals-sharp-rise-in-number-of-maternal-deaths-1.2111831
Nurses and doctors don’t even clean themselves, in many cases. Go into any newsagent opposite a hospital and you’ll see them out in their white coats and scrubs, against all international hygiene practice. They no longer wash their hands right up above their wrists – if at all – between patients. They wear watches and rings, and often have long nails. Hair trails down over faces and necks. Rubber gloves, if worn, are often not changed between patients.
We seem to have forgotten our grandmothers’ dictum that soap and water costs nothing.
Here’s what Atul Gawande wrote about medics and handwashing http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/03/24/on-washing-hands/
And it’s all very well to blame the cleaners, but hospital cleaning is and should be a specialist job with specialist training, and the cleaning should be inspected properly. Cleaners should be shown how to clean the machines, how to keep separate floor cloths and sponges for cleaning different surfaces. And it should be a skilled, honourable, well-paid, secure job for intelligent people – who are, after all, responsible for saving lives.
Ah would ye go away out of that