A few years ago, on the way from my son’s birthday party, my heart began racing.

I had a massive headache and fluid began to fill my lungs.

I sat on the sidewalk for half an hour before recognizing I would need some help.

This help I resisted, until a few hours later when my condition worsened, and the ambulance was called.

Recognising the seriousness of my situation, I was immediately wheeled into the A & E, but only to be stuck in the bay next to the medical desk for over an hour, unattended.

When I was finally attended to, the attending doctor was the one who had been sitting behind the medical desk all the time I had been there waiting.

What was she doing sitting for an hour and a half?

Looking back, I think I knew the answer, but I will leave that to your imagination.

The Reasons For A & E Gridlock 

The British government recently agreed to give the National Health Service (NHS) 34 billion pound to clear the backlog brought about by coronavirus.

For politicians, throwing money at a problems is the only methodology they know for solving problems.

Afterall, it’s not their money.

If they ran out of cash, they simply raise taxes.

But will additional money help the NHS clear the backlog?

I don’t think so.

The increased backlog has nothing to do with coronavirus.

Granted, the coronavirus exacerbated the problem.

However, coronavirus is not the root cause of the problem.

The cause is the attitude of the medical professionals.

A typical example is surgery, where patients’ surgeries are delayed because surgeons refuse to work on weekends.

Well, that statement is not entirely accurate.

It’s not that they refuse to work on the weekend, but they choose not to work on the weekend for the NHS.

The weekend is reserved for their work in private hospitals.

So, if the government is really serious about reducing the surgery backlog, all they need to do is get medical professionals to work on the weekends.

Even the Prime Minister works on the weekends, why not surgeons?

A similar situation exists in the A & E.

A & E gridlock has nothing to do financing inadequacies, it has to do with three simple things:

• The absence of senior doctors
• Delays in discharging patients
• The inability to take advantage of technology

The absence of senior doctors

Sometime ago, my son’s brother was unwell.

His mother rushed him to the A & E.

The following day, when we visited, she informed us that she was still awaiting his diagnoses as no consultant had seen the child

Why?

There was only a single consultant in the entire A & E on that day, therefore, he had to prioritise the more severe cases.

How it is that someone in his right mind believes it is ok to have inexperienced junior doctors in the A & E to cover  the most complicated section in the hospital defies logic.

It reminds me of a similar illogical move that I witnessed in a football world cup match.  The Ghanaian national coach decided to omit his best players from the first team and introduce them deep into the second half when his team was in big trouble. The end result — Ghana lost the match.

Then he gave the foolish explanation that he wanted to introduce his best players after the opponents were exhausted.

You’re probably thinking — that was a foolish idea.

But is it any different from what is being done in the A & E?

A & E treatment largely depends on intuition. So, instead of having senior doctors with the ability to intuit their way through patients’ issues, hospital A & Es have junior doctors who have to wait for hours for test results to make a diagnosis.

This bolsters the point I made previously about the backlog, it comes down to the attitude of medical professionals.

Delays in Discharging Patients 

At the start of this article, I told the story of being taken to the hospital by an ambulance. As a result of that visit, I stayed five days in the cardiac assessment unit before being transferred to another ward to await discharge.

The idea was for me to be discharged to return two weeks later for heart surgery.

But because the surgery date was so close, I was advised to wait in the hospital until my scan was complete to avoid being treated as an outpatient and have my scan being delayed

The scan was supposed to take place the following day.

The following day came and went, but there was no scan.

Then I was told the following day…

Then the following day…

Then the following, and on it went until the fifth day, when I decided to break the circle and request a discharge.

By the way, I was only, one of three persons on the ward waiting for a scan.

Not to mention two patients waiting on the ward because they could not find a care facility to house them.

In fact, while there, one of the patients awaiting transfer to a care facility, fell the toilet and injured himself; he then had to be returned for treatment.

I told this story because one of the reasons hospitals give for long A & E wait time is insufficient empty beds.

But here was a case where five patients with no reason for being in the hospital occupying beds.

Pleas by both the ward manager and the consultant for the scans to be done went unheeded on account of being busy.

Then there is social services taking an inordinate amount of time to find suitable facilities to lodge patients that have been discharged.

Then there is the hospital pharmacy that takes two hundred years to fill patient prescriptions.

They are also busy I guess.

At this very moment, I can wager that a visit to any hospital in the UK, will reveal more than a quarter of the patients occupying beds have no reason to be in a hospital.

So, if the government wants to reduce A & E wait time, ensure the various departments work collaboratively.

    Inability to take advantage of technology 

A friend of mine decided to pursue IVF treatment.

Tens of thousands of pounds and several attempts later, there was no baby to show for it.

So, they decided to try another clinic.

The second clinic said their process had to start with a scan.

When they conducted the first scan, they discovered a scar tissue, which was preventing her from conceiving.

The first clinic had also done several scans but an old scanner failed to detect the scar tissue.

Most of the time patients spend at the A & E is spent waiting for test results.

I previously alluded to the fact that someone in their infinite wisdom decided it was prudent to staff the A & E with junior doctors with little clue about what they are doing.

Therefore, have to wait for test results to make the simplest of diagnosis.

Since it’s obvious I am never going to convince senior doctors to work in the A & E, one simple way of overcoming the current predicament is to fit hospital A & Es with advanced technology.

Medical technology has become so advanced that, in the right hands, they can literally perform miracles. By simply retrofitting A & Es with certain technologies, wait time can be cut by up to eighty percent.

As I said in my previous article, GP practices also need to be fitted with advanced technologies as this will enable GP to catch many illnesses at the early stage.

Finally, technology also needs to be driven to patient homes.

Remember my INR test story? Imagine what would have happened if I did not have the machine to self test, I would have been frequenting the A & E.

Implementing the above suggested changes will help to drastically reduce A & E wait time.