A cancer patient claims she was treated “like a dog” after being kept on a trolley in a hospital storage room for three nights.
Charlene Lynch, 27, who suffers from Hodgkins lymphoma, also claims she was not fed because staff did not know she was there.
She was admitted to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin, last Friday, when she required emergency surgery on her foot.
But after the procedure, instead of being sent to a post-op recovery ward, a bed shortage meant she was abandoned in the tiny room and given a curtain for a blanket.
Mum-of-one Charlene, who was discharged yesterday, told the Irish Mirror : “I just couldn’t wait to get out of there. I feel like I’m nothing. I just feel like dirt. My illness hasn’t been taken into consideration or anything.
“They just squeezed me into a room on a trolley, I was in so much pain.”
Last October Charlene, from Mulhuddart, Dublin, was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma.
Her three-day ordeal came just nine weeks after she finished a punishing course of chemotherapy.
Charlene Lynch
Charlene Lynch pictured at her home
Charlene, who has been in remission since June, said: “I did chemo for 12 sessions and I had stage 2b cancer.
“It’s cancer in the lymph nodes, which is the neck, the chest and the groin.”
Charlene’s doctors at Connolly were aware of her battle with the disease but she was told nothing could be done to accommodate her.
She added: “To treat someone like this who is actually very, very ill, to put them in a storage room, it’s ridiculous.
“It’s all on my chart. But I had to explain to them that I’d been going through chemotherapy and I had to explain what kind of medication I’m on because I’m in remission.
“I had to explain to them that I had cancer and everything else, then they just put me in the storage room.
“I got told there wasn’t enough beds and it was the only thing that they could do. A bed became available in the men’s ward, but obviously I can’t go there.
“So I’ve just been lying on a trolley in the storage room for three days.
“I didn’t even get asked did I want anything to eat because the people didn’t even know I was here in this room, they just by-passed me. I said it to them.
Charlene Lynch
" I was crying because I was puking so much with the medication and I said, ‘You haven’t even offered me anything to eat’.
“Sunday morning was the first time I had something to eat, that I was even offered something.”
Charlene also said she had no privacy in the room with staff coming in and out throughout the day and even at night.
She added: “All night long they’re in and out, in and out. It’s where they hang up their X-rays.
“It’s a storage treatment room. They have oxygen masks in here, disposable forceps, disposable scissors, clips removers.
“I was in the Redwood ward, this is all for casts and people who have serious injuries, so they need this all the time.
“In the night they still come in to get bandages and all the rest. There was no privacy whatsoever for me.”
Charlene, who has an 11-year-old daughter, said she empathised with the pressures staff were facing.
She added: “The staff are only being given a certain amount of room. People are still coming in, the staff can’t turn away people that are seriously injured.
“You can see that in them as well, they’re under pressure.” But Charlene said she felt there could be no excusing the way she was treated.
She added: “If you get sick or you have an illness, don’t expect the Government to look after you, because they won’t.
“I’m a mother to an 11-year-old, I’m only gone 27, I was sick last year.
“I’ve been given no support, no help, no nothing. You’re just treated like a dog.
“There are thousands of mothers in my situation.
Charlene Lynch
“I just feel sorry for the older people who come in, who aren’t able to fend for themselves.”
A spokeswoman for Connolly Hospital said they could not comment on individual cases.
However, she added: “Management would request any patient or family member who has concerns with regard to their hospital treatment and care to contact the hospital manager directly where their concerns may be addressed in confidence.
“In some cases a decision may be taken to accommodate a patient in a treatment room off a ward to expedite their surgery.
“Patients may be required to fast post and pre-surgery.”
sourcehttp://www.olokunbolablessing.com/2014/08/cancer-patient-kept-on-trolley-in.html
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