16 hours ago
Hospitals dealing with 'supply and demand mismatch', as 430 patients wait on trolleys
'Beds, beds, beds' — that is the demand from the president of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine (IAEM), as 430 patients waited on trolleys on Wednesday during a summer month when such a figure is very high.
The total included 109 patients on trolleys at University Hospital Limerick (UHL), the worst affected.
Cork University Hospital (CUH) was overcrowded with 54 patients without a bed, with three on trolleys at the Mercy Hospital, the count by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation showed.
Some 68 patients had been waiting longer than 24 hours for a bed by 8am yesterday, including three aged over 75, separate HSE data showed.
Among this group of long-waiters, two were in University Hospital Kerry in Tralee. This hospital was recently the subject of a Hiqa report highlighting potentially unsafe overcrowding.
At UHL, 20 patients had waited over 24 hours and another 14 people waited this long at Mayo hospital.
IAEM president and a consultant in emergency medicine at CUH Conor Deasy said there is 'a supply and demand mismatch' across hospitals.
There is a promise of beds being funded, an expedited delivery would really benefit patients who find themselves being treated on trolleys on corridors.
All hospitals are seeing more older patients often with more complex illnesses, and he said 'some are not able to access GP services' now. Summing up the urgency, he said the solution is 'beds, beds, beds'.
The last five weeks have also seen a sharp rise in people admitted with covid. By mid-August, 238 covid patients were in hospitals, up from just 80 in early June.
'Covid continues to generate demand,' he said.
In addition, hospital patients may face delays at this time of year as staff take summer holidays, and are replaced by temporary locum workers.
We also see delayed admissions and discharges when inpatient colleagues are on leave, and locums may be more risk averse.
In February, health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said: 'We are committed to ensuring there are more beds for our hospitals, and to removing some elective procedures from acute hospitals into new surgical hubs, and then elective hospitals.'
Just weeks ago, she welcomed a 'significant 51% reduction of trolley numbers' over a August bank holiday weekend, compared to St Brigid's in February. Government statements on this difference did not refer to the impact on hospitals of Storm Éowyn and repeated heavy snowfalls.
Meanwhile, babies born between September 1 and February 29 will benefit from an expanded RSV vaccination campaign in a bid to further reduce cases of this winter infection.
Babies aged up to six months old on September 1 can also benefit, the health minister said yesterday.
Last winter's campaign saw a 65% reduction in case numbers, compared to the winter before, including a 57% drop in babies in emergency departments with RSV. It also led to a 76% reduction in hospitalisations and a 65% reduction in ICU admissions.
