I’ve had alot of experience of hospitals lately, my mother has been in and out of them for the last 4 months.

The one thing I take away from the experience is that using hospitals in Ireland are anything but fun. There are alot of people who work in the industry that do their job and do them well, but I do think that sometimes they don’t do enough.

My main complaint is lack of communication between the doctors/nurses and us, they never offer up any information, (blood from stone comes to mind).

Taking days off to meet the doctors who make an appointment and then never show up till 3 hours later is extremely annoying.

Another problem was administration, sometimes the they did not even know if my mother was even checked in, or what part of the hospital she was staying in, (at one stage is said I’ll ring my sister to find out which ward she is in).

I suppose the biggest problem is passing the buck, no one is really responsible for anything.
The doctors are too busy only come around once a day(unlike ER , they don’t do everything for their patients). Not getting assigned the same doctor is another problem, having a doctor that knows the history is common sense.

I do think there is a lack of upper management skill and compantance within the HSE(Health Service executive), Mary Harney is an ideal role model for such a messed up system.