Irelands Eye - A round up of Irish news

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Teen Waits on Trolley
A 15-YEAR-old girl from Limerick city remained on a trolley for over 50 hours in the Mid-Western Regional hospital last week as she waited to be treated for a kidney and bladder infection.

The mother of the teenage girl, who did not wish to be named, said she was admitted to the hospital at 8:30 a.m. on Monday after she collapsed at home and was transported by ambulance to the hospital.  On Wednesday afternoon, after being on a trolley for 54 hours, her daughter was finally moved to a bed.

Figures released by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization show that 27 people were on trolleys in the Regional on Wednesday alone, among some 385 people waiting on trolleys for a bed in hospitals across the country. 

A spokesperson for the hospital said the facility is under “acute pressure” due to a number of factors including the vomiting bug, respiratory ailments and a post-Christmas surge “which seems to be more pressing this year than previous years.” 

The mother said she was told at 2 a.m. on Wednesday that her daughter was being moved to a bed, but said she was simply moved to another trolley in a corridor of one ward with a screen around her.

“She’s only 15 years old and looks like someone homeless the way she’s been left on the trolley. I just feel like crying looking at her,” she said, speaking before a bed was located.

“The nurses and doctors have been fantastic, but are rushed off their feet and can’t do anything more for us.

“People beside her were nearly falling on top of her. You couldn’t walk around the trolleys there was so many around her. She has a kidney and bladder infection and also picked up the vomiting bug since she’s been in the hospital.”

Limerick Leader

Frozen Food Thieves
WHEN Margaret McGee went to get her family some food on New Year’s Eve, she felt a little bit like Mother Hubbard. But instead of her cupboard being bare, she discovered that sneaky thieves had stolen every bit of food out of her fridge freezer.

“All I was left with was a pepperoni pizza,” she said. “Every bit of food I had in the chest freezer in my outside shed was gone.”

McGee, of Woodview Close, explained that while she has a freezer in her kitchen, she keeps a chest freezer in her shed to store extra food in.

She reckons the fast food thieves struck sometime between Christmas and December 31 when she asked her daughter to get food from the freezer.

“I had been using the food from inside the house full sure I had a back-up supply, but when my daughter came back and said there was nothing in the freezer I was shocked,” she said. “All the meat and vegetables that I had were gone. I was left with just the pizza.”

McGee said the thieves must have either brought a large bag to carry the food away or else made a number of trips to her freezer.

“They had to get over an eight-foot wall. The back gate was locked all the time. I think they scaled the wall because they left a garden chair against it,” said McGee, who said the only time she left the house over Christmas was to attend bingo.

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Nster.com