Night on hospital chair while man waited for fourth operation

A man spent the night on a chair in Tallaght University Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) as he waited to undergo his fourth surgery in a month.

Adam Haskins (39) of Naas Road, Clondalkin, suffers from a kidney disease that causes the formation of stones in his kidney.

Following a surgery in October that was supposed to leave him stones free, an “excruciating pain” brought him back to TUH Emergency Department several times.

On Wednesday, November 27, a stent to remove new stones had already been inserted in and removed from his kidney three times, when the pain had him going back into the ED once again.

Adam arrived at the ED at 2pm that day, only to be treated the following morning after 7am.

As “he couldn’t be guaranteed a bed or a trolley,” he spent his night in pain on one of the chairs.

When he eventually saw a doctor from the nephrology department, he found out that he was given the wrong medications by the urologists who previously treated him, leading to the stones coming back after every surgery.

While he is now at home recovering after his last emergency surgery, Adam doesn’t want the way he was treated to be brushed off.

“It all took a toll on my mental health. I’m not in a good place mentally right now.

“I don’t understand why I was treated that way.”

The night of November 29 was, in fact, only the last part of the “ordeal” he went through at TUH.

The first time he turned to the ED in early November, he arrived “in shock from pain”.

After incredibly long waits while in that pain, he underwent surgery and was discharged the following day, even if he claimed not to feel well enough.

“Security came to the ward and told me to pack my bags.

“I wasn’t being aggressive on any of the patients or staff, so I couldn’t understand why.”

Adam said he wasn’t physically forced to leave but that he felt “threatened” to do so.

The same pattern was allegedly followed every time he went in, causing him stress besides pain and leaving him with questions unanswered, until having to accept to spend a whole night on a chair.

Besides his mental well-being, Adam lost five weeks of work.

“Hopefully this is the last operation, which he shouldn’t have had to have in the first place,” said his mother Geraldine, who blames the lack of investment into TUH’s staff and resources for what her son went through.

“We are not blaming the staff, the nurses, or doctors who do a great job. I am putting a hundred per cent of the blame on our [former] Government.”

Tallaght University Hospital notably has “one of the busiest Emergency Departments nationally with a catchment population of approximately 450,000 people,” as stated on the HSE website.

Two weeks ago, another local woman told The Echo she found TUH’s ED to be “like a war zone,” after her father-in-law was left waiting for 8 hours with a chest fracture and a bleed in his brain.

“TUH has been exceptionally busy in the last few weeks,” a spokesperson for the hospital told The Echo.

“Activity year to date in the Hospital Emergency Department is up 8pc or 4,082 attendances.

“The Hospital has a significant historical deficit in inpatient beds and as a result the Hospital operates at 110% occupancy all of the time.

“We regret there are lengthy delays and long wait times, all patients are triaged and are seen by the clinicians based on their clinical need which may result in some patients waiting longer to be seen.”

According to the spokesperson, this will be addressed by a new ward block in planning.