€24m A&E unit will not eliminate patients on trolleys
“There were 18 patients on trolleys when I started work this morning and there will be around the same number when I finish tonight, because we do not have any beds for them upstairs,” said Dr Stephen Cusack, as Health Minister Mary Harney visited the city hospital yesterday.
CUH is the country’s only level one trauma centre and the largest hospital in Munster. While Dr Cusack welcomed the €24 million A&E unit, which will be opened in March, he said it would not solve the problem of patients on trolleys.
“We will still have the bed shortage problem and I cannot see why we cannot allow each ward to take just one or two patients to ease the burden like my colleague, Dr Aidan Gleeson, in Beaumont Hospital has suggested,” Dr Cusack said.
The A&E crisis deepened yesterday with the revelation that the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has ordered each hospital to carry out a comprehensive risk assessment of its departments. This followed a claim by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) that overcrowding the A&E units was posing a “serious risk” to patients.
The HSA wants each A&E to report back by February 25 stating measures it expects to take to tackle problems identified.
The Tanaiste said she welcomed the move and that it was not the first time the HSA had done this.
Asked if it was not a scandal that she was presiding over an A&E service that could be dangerous, the Health Minister said: “The HSA is there to ensure that every place of work operates to the highest standards - that includes hospitals and other health facilities.”
She stressed that €70m had been set aside by her Department for 10 different initiatives aimed at tackling the A&E crisis nationally. Advertisements appear in today’s paper seeking beds in the private sector for those who are occupying acute beds they do not need.
And the home care package has also been approved this week.
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