520 PATIENTS ON TROLLEYS ...AND THAT’S DURING GOOD WEATHER
As Sláintecare is launched with much fanfare, doctors ask how hospitals will cope this winter
FEARS of a winter health crisis are mounting after 520 patients were on A&E trolleys yesterday – a record for summer. It came as healthcare experts and Opposition parties dismissed the Government’s ten-year plan to reform the health service, which was unveiled yesterday. Nursing union leader Phil Ní Sheaghdha, of the INMO, said the trolley figures were startling, adding: ‘August is not usually such a busy time for emergency departments.
‘With figures like these, the outlook for the coming winter is extremely bleak for both staff and patient
welfare. Hospitals are already way over capacity and the numbers are climbing steadily.’
Peadar Gilligan, president of the Irish Medical Organisation, said: ‘We have an urgent, immediate demand for additional resources just to deal with crisis situations in our current services.’
And Stephen McMahon from the Irish Patients’ Association said: ‘The 520 people on trolleys is an extraordinary number and one of the highest recorded in recent years. It’s up almost 20% on the same period last year. If we are having this problem in the summer months, what is it going to be like in the winter months?’
The number of patients on trolleys yesterday was a record for a summer’s day since the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) began collecting the figures in 2006.
Reacting to the shocking statistics, Dr Fergal Hickey, emergency medicine consultant at Sligo University Hospital, said: ‘That we have 520 people on trolleys is part of a 12-months-of-the-year crisis.
‘We have a lot of rubbish from the HSE on this that describes this as a “winter” issue, but the problem is 12 months of the year.
‘A lot of rubbish from the HSE’
‘We can say it’s probably more significant during the winter months. At the end of the day, it comes down to capacity and we don’t have enough beds.
‘Therefore, the number of people of surgical lists is rising as people on trolleys rise with it.’
It came as the Government yesterday launched its Sláintecare plan for health service reform.
The ten-year plan proposes to introduce universal healthcare, eliminate cost as a barrier to medical treatment, and put infrastructure in place for a rapidly growing population.
Plans include 2,600 new acute hospital beds, 4,500 community care beds and three new hospitals – in Cork, Galway and Dublin – specialising in surgery. As much as €800million extra will be spent on putting diagnostic equipment into the community so people will not need to go to hospital.
However, there was no sign in the proposals of a free GP service – with the plan being downgraded to a long-term objective.
John Brassil, Fianna Fáil’s spokesman on primary healthcare, said: ‘When we examine the longawaited Sláintecare implementation strategy, we see it now promises more strategies and plans.
‘A detailed “action plan” is pledged within three months. We can also expect a “citizen care masterplan” at some stage. Next year we can expect a “multi-annual inpatient waiting list action plan” and a “multi-annual outpatient waiting list action plan”.’
Mr Brassil pointed out that the layers of action plans and advisory groups came on the same day 520 people were on hospital trolleys.
It also comes a day after figures collated by Fianna Fáil appear to suggest that nearly one million people are on waiting lists around the country, including for hip surgery, endoscope exploration and appointments for eye tests.
At the Sláintecare ‘implementation strategy’ launch yesterday, Simon Harris admitted waiting lists were too long and vowed to introduce caps that would ensure patients wait no more than 12 weeks for an appointment.
The Health Minister said the Sláintecare proposals would address waiting lists, while admitting the Government needs to ‘do better’. He said they were learning from successful measures in Scotland.
He explained: ‘The Sláintecare plan wants to get to a waiting list guarantee of 12 weeks. If you or I were sitting in Scotland a number of years ago and they said they were going to do that, I’m sure a lot of people in the media would understandably have said, “Well, that will never happen.”
‘But it did: they did it through a number of measures we’re going to take here, including trying to do more in the community.’
The Minister also accused Fianna Fáil of misrepresenting the waiting list figures, saying nearly 500,000 outpatient appointments were missed last year.
Mr Harris said: ‘We didn’t wake up to a million people on waiting lists this morning; we woke up to Fianna Fáil taking out a calculator and adding up figures, most of which were in the public domain, coincidentally on a day we are launching a major strategy. Look, that’s politics.’
But he added: ‘I believe far too many patients are on waiting lists for too long, I believe we have a significant waiting list challenge and we need to accept it. But I do believe there is a responsibility on the Opposition. We cannot have a situation where somebody believes everybody in this country will wait 18 months for an operation.
‘Far too many are – I’m determined to drive that down – but the majority of people are waiting less than nine months and a significant proportion are waiting less than three months.’
In total, the plan contains 106 actions which have been approved by Government, but the document has not costed these actions.
Fianna Fáil’s Mr Brassil accused Mr Harris of only paying ‘lip service’ to the report while the winter health crisis stretches into spring and summer.
He said that on key elements of the report the Government had simply promised ‘further reviews, frameworks and proposals over the next two years’.
Mr Harris rejected claims the Government has sat on its hands until now.
He said: ‘Sláintecare told us to increase home help in the Budget; we did it. Sláintecare said reduce the drug payment scheme, the monthly threshold; we did it.
‘Sláintecare said reduce the prescription charges; we did it. And we want to build on that further in future years.’
Mr Harris declined to reveal the projected cost of the plan, saying it could disadvantage the Government in ongoing contract negotiations with doctors and consultants.
Some €10.9billion has already been ringfenced for the project as
part of the National Development Plan, while Mr Harris agreed with analysis from UCC that an extra €2.6billion would need to be added to the health budget by the final year of the plan.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association had previously estimated the cost at €20billion over the ten-year period.
The Irish Daily Mail has previously calculated the ten-year health reform plan would require an extra €2.8billion in taxpayers’ money each and every year – on top of current health spending.
Although it has been widely reported the plan would give everyone in the country free medical care for a cost of just €2.8billion over a decade, an investigation by this paper revealed the actual cost would be an extra €2.8billion every year for ten years. And raising this extra €2.8billon a year would mean an additional €1,750 would have to be taken from every taxpayer in each of the ten years.
But Mr Harris has ruled out tax hikes to fund the proposals, saying: ‘There’s no proposed tax increases. Much of this will be covered by a growing economy to deliver the resources needed for a proper health service.’
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association said the Sláintecare report was ‘inherently flawed’ and failed to address the health service’s shortcomings. A spokesman said: ‘There is a critical shortage of hospital beds, consultants, other frontline staff and equipment which is impeding our ability to care for patients.
‘The proposal to introduce 2,600 new beds over the next 15 years is insufficient and fails to immediately address the very urgent needs of patients who need access to care in our acute hospitals.’
The HSE described the plans as ‘the most important milestone for the development of Ireland’s health service in a generation’.
It said: ‘Our patients, our service users, our staff and the Irish public will benefit and they are our focus in implementing reform and re-framing the way in which we deliver our services.’
‘Critical shortage of doctors’