Last Friday, An 89-year-old woman, was ‘forgotten’ in the Emergency Department of Hospital Dr. Nélio Mendonça, and remained on a hospital trolley for about 10 hours without receiving any help or treatment.
The complaint was made to JM by the woman’s daughter, who considered it “inadmissible in a public health service” and “a real shame” the way her mother was treated, deriding the inadequate facilities and lack of care shown by health professionals.
As reported to JM, the patient has several health issues including, diabetes, only has one leg, hearing problems and has recently been diagnosed with cancer. And she was left on a hospital trolley from 3 pm and 1 am without receiving treatment, food or water and neither were her sanitary needs met.
Later this afternoon it was announced that SESARAM are investigating the situation, and issued the following statement:
The hospital unit guarantees that “all complaints follow the investigation process with the intervening services” and advances that, “from what has been determined so far, the screening carried out by the nursing team was adequate in this case.”
“As a result, the waiting time is conditioned by the number of users with priority screening,” justifies the same note, which requests “the understanding of users and their families regarding the waiting times associated with Manchester Triage, which complies with criteria technicians adopted in emergency services.”
SESARAM also guarantees that health professionals from the Emergency Department of Hospital Dr. Nélio Mendonça “seek, with all dedication, to respond as efficiently as possible, which unfortunately does not always correspond to the expectation of users screened with green color, since users with priority screening (yellow and orange) demand the safeguarding of this priority.”
Another caveat is that the Support Line for the Elderly (969 320 822) remains active, which is intended to support and guide the needs of the elderly population and can be used by families.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
