Extra 250 beds to relieve overcrowding at A&E
An extra 250 private hospital beds will be made available for long-stay patients to reduce overcrowding in A&E departments, the Taoiseach told the Dáil today.
Opposition leader Enda Kenny claimed that patients were afraid to go into busy city hospitals at weekends because of the risk of infection or assault by drunks.
Mr Ahern said the Health Service Executive told him yesterday that it was contracting another 250 beds on top of the 250 it rented in November.
He told TDs: “It’s not acceptable by Government that older people have long waits for admission. The HSE is prioritising issues of comfort, dignity and sanitary requirements for patients.
“The HSE told me yesterday that they are taking another 250 patients out of the acute public beds and putting them into longer-stay private beds. There is a cost element to that.”
A focused implementation of the 10-Point Plan is underway, Mr Ahern noted.
The HSE was reducing pressure on facilities by providing more home support as well as furthering its flu vaccination campaign and increasing the number of step-down facilities.
Bur Mr Kenny said: “There is a real fear among the general population about going to hospital in the first place.
“I don’t know whether the Taoiseach and his ministers actually appreciate the level of fear out there among people about having to go to hospital in the first place – for fear of infection, for fear of some other ailment other than what they are going in there for in the first place.”
“Is it not a truly intolerable situation as a consequence of the new social phenomenon of the complete abuse of alcohol and drugs at weekends in A&E units? Practically every hospital is visited by drunks and their hangers-on who go in there to cause intimidation and assault front-line staff who have to bear the brunt of the Government’s failure in this regard.”
Mr Ahern replied that intoxicated people had always posed problems at A&Es.
“It’s not today or yesterday that drunks started coming into A&Es. We have a violent element to that. More and more in the city A&Es, the Gardaí are almost permanently based there with security people,” he added.
Mr Kenny called for the creation in legislation of a new offence for assaulting hospital staff.
“Is it not time that a particular offence should be created for assault of a member of staff in an A&E unit. Is it not time that we have special ’wet rooms’ where people can sleep off their intoxication while being charged handsomely?
“How can you say that the situation is improving when we know patients are going into A&Es with far greater chaos, a sense of fear and sense of intimidation?”
Mr Ahern also said that it was unsatisfactory that there was not a GP service in some areas after 5.30pm.
“It is a fact of life that people don’t stop getting sick after 5pm or at 1pm on a Saturday,” he said.
