Suzanne Crowe: We only had to wait five hours in A&E after my son’s fracture – we were lucky

Emergency department bottlenecks can only be fixed by taking a societal approach

Patients in an emergency department waiting room. Picture posed. Photo: Getty

Last week I spent five hours as a family member in an emergency department. It was evening and the waiting room was full as I arrived with my son, who had a nasty fracture following a spill on the rugby pitch. After repositioning of the broken bone, pain relief and a plaster cast, he was more comfortable and ready for home. We agreed that it had been a gruelling but necessary experience.

A few days later, a HSE report stated that the average waiting time in EDs around the country was seven hours, with waiting times ranging from 3.7 hours

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