Additional hospital beds and frontline staff urgently needed according to IHCA
Additional hospital beds and frontline staff urgently needed according to IHCA
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has said that the current trolley crisis is creating an unacceptable risk and danger to patients and has called on the HSE to immediately open beds and increase staffing levels so that the overcrowding can be eased.
Dr Gerard Crotty, IHCA President, said that the fundamental problem, which has resulted in the crisis of 600 emergency patients awaiting a hospital bed, is that there are insufficient beds, frontline staff and other resources to treat the increased number of patients presenting for care. He said this problem is compounded by the fact that there are about 800 patients clinically discharged who cannot leave hospital because they are awaiting nursing home accommodation or home care support. In addition, there are several hospitals with significant numbers of patients on trolleys where delayed discharges are not the cause. The HSE should immediately open new beds and appoint additional medical and nursing staff which would address the extreme and dangerous overcrowding that exists in all of our public hospitals.
Dr Crotty said that “this crisis is a manifestation of the failure to create suitable working conditions for all medical staff combined with increased attendance at public hospitals. Additional staff and beds are urgently required to deal with the atrocious conditions that exist. The HSE’s recent decision to implement new restrictions on the employment of agency staff, effective from 1 January, without having dealt with the underlying problems may have exacerbated the current crisis in circumstances where the HSE is failing to fill NCHD and Consultant posts.” He said there may be additional problems associated with the NCHD rotation on Monday, 12 January where not all these posts may be filled.
The IHCA President said that the fact that some hospitals have cancelled elective surgery is unfortunate as it will result in the condition of some cancelled surgical patients deteriorating such that they will have to be admitted through emergency departments. In addition, he said cancellations will add to elective waiting lists which have increased by around 20% in the past year.
Dr Crotty said the IHCA highlighted at its Annual Conference in October that there were already a significantly higher number of patients on trolleys during the summer months and it was expected to increase during the winter unless corrective action was taken. He said, the current predictable crisis with patients waiting in unacceptable conditions is a serious risk to patient safety and the Government must act to resolve it without delay.
ENDS
For further information contact:
James Dunny, FleishmanHillard 086 388 3903