A hospital crisis and how to fix it

Your front-page story about medically fit patients being kept unnecessarily in acute hospital beds is deeply disturbing (MoS, February 26).

A little joined-up thinking in terms of investment in step-down facilities and care homes could easily address this problem and free up those beds for people who urgently need operations. Spending money on such step-down care would almost certainly end up saving the State money, so it would be a smart investment.

It simply beggars belief that a patient who is well enough to leave could be left in a hospital bed for more than four years.

Sheila Martin, Dublin 24.