Nurses scorn plans for 300 extra beds

Leaders say hospitals cannot staff current services

A TOTAL of 300 patient beds announced yesterday to ease A&E overcrowding over winter may stay open permanently, Leo Varadkar has signalled.

However the largest nurses’ union, the INMO, immediately cast doubt on the Health Minister’s plan and said management cannot find staff for existing services.

Union general secretary Liam Doran also confirmed A&E nurses may consider temporary withdrawal of labour over the record overcrowding levels.

Fergal Hickey of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine said the A&E department ‘system is breaking down’ even before winter arrives.

Mr Hickey, a consultant at Sligo General, said: ‘Although there have been claims of improvements the reality on the ground is the situation is getting worse.

‘If it is getting worse in July and August – and so far in September it is looking particularly bleak – then you can imagine what it will be like in the winter.’

Mr Hickey described plans to fine hospitals which fail to meet targets for elective surgery like hip replacements as ‘crazy’.

In addition €25million extra is being given to hospitals to ensure no patient is waiting longer than 15 months for planned treatment by the end of the year.

He said the plan will only add to overcrowding and would force more – mainly elderly patients – on to trolleys in packed A&E rooms waiting for a hospital bed,

Mr Hickey said: ‘The only way that can work is by hospitals deciding to reconfigure beds from being beds that can take acute emergencies to beds used for elective activity and if that happens more patients will wait on trolleys for longer and more will die.

‘You are much more likely to die as a result of an emergency presentation than you would if you were on a waiting list for planned elective surgery.

‘I am not saying elective surgery isn’t important – it is – but we have to face up to the problem that we do not have enough capacity in the system – either beds, staff or money – to do what the Government wants done simultaneously.’

As many as 321 patients were on trolleys and chairs waiting for admission to a hospital bed nationwide yesterday.

Mr Varadkar said despite work done to ease overcrowding ‘we haven’t seen an improvement in the number of people who are on trolleys’.

He said additional action is to be taken. The minister said: ‘Some- thing that can make an impact more quickly is opening about 300 additional beds in our hospitals to help cope with winter demand.

‘They will be all over the country but they will be particularly in hotspots where things are very difficult, like Galway, Limerick, Drogheda and Tallaght.’

‘The thinking is that they would remain probably until Easter next year when things start to ease usually but if they don’t they will have to stay open.

‘They are intended to give us additional capacity for winter but could remain open permanently doing surgery or waiting list work in the summer. It will all depend on the level of overcrowding.’

Mr Doran said finding the physical space for an additional 300 patient beds was a difficult enough challenge – but would be easier than finding staff.

‘They cannot staff the existing service sufficiently so how are they going to find staff for an additional 300 beds?’ he said.

‘Not enough medics or money’