Resilience during a crisis – the Wexford General Hospital fire
The leadership team at Wexford General Hospital provided a first-hand account of dealing with the major emergency that unfolded at Wexford General Hospital, at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland Annual Symposium on Thursday, 19 October.
According to Dr Emma O’Sullivan, Consultant Geriatrician at Wexford it became clear very soon after the fire was identified, that there was a threat to life and the hospital would need to be evacuated. This involved triaging patients and importantly determining how to evacuate the patients who are highest risk.
“I cannot overestimate the value of fire doors…this gives you the time you need to calmly go through your patient list…how would we manage patients in intensive care, we had patients and theatre…who was in labour?
“The most critically unwell need to be transferred to other care units so we have to quickly triage who would go where.”
Linda O’Leary, Manager of Wexford General Hospital, said that collaboration was critical both inside the hospital and across hospital sites. She spoke to the incredible support from surrounding hospitals such as Waterford General Hospital which admitted many of the patients displaced by the hospital, and St Vincents Hospital which cancelled all elective surgery as soon as the major emergency was declared.
- 122 patients were discharged but not without challenges – They all had to be contacted for follow-up.
- 90 patients were transported to other facilities
- 29 patients remained in Wexford General Hospital safely away from the fire
Providing the National Ambulance point of view, Ian Brennan said the fire could not have been planned for.
“It’s completely unheard of to evacuate a full acute hospital,” he said.
“The amount of people willing to help was outstanding. It was that collaboration which put structure on the chaos.”
Working with the hospital team, the National Ambulance Service was able to simultaneously deploy a number of critical responses to look after the most unwell patients.
19 October 2023 marks 233 days since the fire; Day 233 on the journey to rebuild and reopen.
If you missed the event, you can catch up on the Attendee Hub via the playback on-demand function.