400 languish on trolleys as A&E crisis hits new peak
Tallaght, Beaumont worst affected
Beaumont Hospital where 38 patients were facing delays
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Wednesday January 16 2008
The number of patients on A&E trolleys yesterday soared to nearly 400 -- the highest level so far this winter.
Figures from the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) revealed the worst hit was Tallaght Hospital in Dublin, where as many as 50 patients were waiting on trolleys yesterday morning.
Other Dublin blackspots included Beaumont Hospital where 38 patients were facing delays and the Mater, where another 36 were crowded into the emergency department.
The total number of 397 patients on trolleys and chairs was as bad as the early months of 2006 when the A&E overcrowding was deemed a national crisis by Health Minister Mary Harney.
Outside Dublin, the hospitals with the worst overcrowding were University College Hospital Galway (27), Cork University Hospital (25) and Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda (23).
Letterkenny General Hospital, Roscommon County Hospital and Sligo General were also struggling to cope with patients, many of whom were in need of a hospital bed.
The situation comes in the wake of an admission by the Health Service Executive (HSE) that months of cutbacks were partly to blame for the crisis.
Fine Gael spokesman on health Dr James Reilly said: "We are firmly back in the territory of March 2006 when the minister described A&E as a 'national emergency'.
"The minister's failure to provide long-promised community beds is at the root of the problem as, in Beaumont and the Mater alone, approximately 57,000 bed-days were lost last year due to delayed discharges. This is the equivalent of a 150-bed hospital.''
He insisted there is no doubt that "misguided cutbacks, imposed with the minister's sanction in the last four months of 2007, have played a part in adding to the problems now.
"In particular, budget cuts which saw patients refused discharge from acute beds to community facilities or supported at home with home-care packages were a false economy."
He said he was appealing to the minister to instruct the HSE to fund the discharges of patients who no longer require acute care to appropriate settings so that desperately needed acute beds can be released without delay.
- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent
