A farmer who spent 25 hours in A&E over the bank holiday weekend said he “wouldn’t leave an animal like that” after witnessing patients in pain on the floor.
On Monday afternoon, Newstalk’s Caoimhe Harney got a call to say that her father had been sent to A&E as a precautionary measure, following a visit to the GP.
As it was not an emergency, he went to see him that evening, at which point he had waited eight hours to be seen.
She stayed with him and, after they took some bloods, they were told it might be around two hours for the results to come back.
However, as the clock ticked well past midnight, the family had heard nothing back.
“At this stage, like he's not alone - the place is packed,” Caoimhe described on Lunchtime Live.
“It's full, full to the brim, it's like a zoo, there's drunk people everywhere.
“There's drunk guys coming in, falling on top of sick people; there's security guards there - they're trying to manage it.
“You can imagine they don't want to annoy the drunk people - so, they're trying to contain them, but also then not aggravate them.”
At this point, Caoimhe’s father even thought about leaving because he had been there so long.
Overall, it was a pretty unpleasant place to spend any length of time.
“First of all, there was water, but there were no cups,” she said.
“There's nowhere to get food at this stage; if you don't have your daughter like me or your brother or your sister or any family member to come in and give you something, you're sitting in A&E for 16 hours with no food, no water.
“There's a vending machine and, ironically enough, it wasn't actually working properly.”
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In total, it took him 25 hours to see a doctor and the pair witnessed a number of distressing sights.
One man was trying to sleep on the floor but was in such bad pain that Caoimhe’s father remarked that he “wouldn’t leave an animal like that”.
Despite this, no doctor or nurse came out to help him.
“We went through two months of lambing,” Caoimhe said.
“If you see a ewe that's sick or something, you go and you help them, you bring them in.
“Honestly, for one of the richest countries in the world, I'm actually so angry about it for all of these people who had to sit there for hours and hours.
“It's unbelievable.”
Main image: An ambulance outside and A&E. Picture by: RollingNews.ie.
