Labour TD Joe Costello has been protesting outside the Mater hospital for more than four years in an effort to highlight conditions in the accident and emergency department. He told Hélène Hofmanwhy he's still there
Every Saturday since April 2003 Joe Costello has protested outside the Mater hospital in Dublin. Although the group of protestors joining him has dwindled over the years to about 15-20 people, the Labour TD for Dublin Central says he is still committed to his cause: highlighting the continuing crisis in accident and emergency departments in hospitals around the city.
According to Costello, dozens of people coming through A&E are forced to wait on trolleys every week in what he describes as overcrowded conditions where hygiene is poor and there are still long delays for treatment.
"When I started there was already a lot of talk about the issues with A&E," Costello explains. "It started when I was approached by a lady whose aunt was on a trolley in the Mater hospital and I went to see her. She had had a heart attack but she was a very lively old lady and she told me that she wanted to get a bed by Saturday because it was her 90th birthday and her grandchildren were coming in to see her and she didn't want them to see her on the A&E ward."
Costello contacted the hospital and explained that the woman had already been waiting two days for a bed. He says they assured him the woman would be given a bed the following day, Friday.
"She was delighted," he says and when he rang the hospital the following Monday he was told that the woman had recovered and had been sent home. However, when he spoke to her niece a few days later he heard a different story.
"Her niece told me that she had died. She had had another heart attack on the A&E ward and died. They had told me an outright lie.
"She never got a bed, she never went home, she died in A&E," he says.
It was soon after that incident that he organised the first protest.
"I decided that I couldn't allow the situation to continue without taking some kind of action so I decided not so much to protest outside the hospital but to have a vigil to highlight the dire circumstances that would allow something like that to happen," he says.
What he initially thought would be a once-off protest became a weekly event.
"Management isn't amused [by the protest] but most of the staff are quite happy.
"They're on the front line and they know what the problems are and are quite happy that they're being highlighted.
"Very often they feel there are things that should be done that are not being done," he says.
Commenting on the protest, a statement from the Mater hospital said: "We respect Joe Costello's right to protest and look forward to the redevelopment of the Mater Hospital in 2008."
Costello acknowledges that there has been some improvement in conditions at the hospital. According to the Irish Nurses Organisation's Trolley Watch records during this week in 2005 there were 133-161 patients waiting on trolleys in the eastern region every day. Last week there were 83-106.
Similarly, figures released by the HSE last month showed that out of 33 emergency departments around the State, 27 said they had no one waiting more than six hours.
However, 16 hospitals said they had patients waiting 13-24 hours and Adelaide and Meath hospital in Tallaght had patients waiting more than 24 hours for treatment.
"Things were bad in 2003, 2004 and 2005 and they improved in 2006 and 2007. There has been a lot of progress made but I'm still concerned.
"There are still serious problems in Beaumont, James's, and St Vincent's has probably made the least amount of progress and that needs to be addressed," he says.
"The problem hasn't gone away. It started off about the A&E but MRSA is now an issue too. Some people, especially elderly people, are afraid to go to hospital because they think they'll never come out.
"You hear court cases about people who've died, who never got treatment and some people just go home because they can't wait any longer," he says.
"These are issues which are not complex health issues, they're basic issues and need to be dealt with.
"The problem is essentially a problem with capacity and a problem of organisation. All the hospitals are operating to capacity and, as a result of that, there is no slack in the system. So we need better beds and better management and organisation," he says.
Critics of the protest have questioned whether it will yield any results. However, John Gallagher, director of the MA in Public Affairs and Political Communication at the Dublin Institute of Technology and affiliate member of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland, believes the campaign could be successful.
"Any protest that attracts media attention can work and will raise awareness of the A&E crisis," says Gallagher.
"It's an issue that affects his constituents and it will create some degree of unrest within the Government.
"The Government likes stability but unrest snowballs until it is eventually tackled. By persisting with the campaign he's creating that degree of unrest and showing his constituents that he's committed.
"There is a possibility the issue will tire but the HSE may decide they have the money and decide to remove one headache. It [ the protest] can have a cumulative effect and a slow burn protest may be exactly what is needed," Gallagher says.
Meanwhile, Costello says he thinks he will get a response "eventually" and says he will continue his protest until that day.
"What I do at the Mater is directed at other hospitals too. Things have improved but that being said it still has a long way to go. You never know exactly what's going on.
"They actually lied to me about that old lady. Why couldn't they have just told me? Since then I've been determined that will never happen again," he says.
The Mater hospital declined to comment on the case.