Government failing to tackle bed shortage, say consultants

DAILY tallies of people waiting on hospital trollies are a damning indictment of the Government’s failure to implement its own strategy to tackle the A&E crisis, hospital consultants claimed yesterday.

They said Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had displayed an amazing lack of understanding of the crisis besetting the country’s acute hospitals.

“The main issue has been and continues to be a shortage of hospital beds,” the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said.

Up to 400 patients are on trolleys and chairs every day awaiting hospital beds, a figure that equated to one in every eight patients who attend A&E units, the IHCA said. “These are patients who have already been assessed by an appropriately qualified doctor and require a hospital bed,” the IHCA added.

Nurses also said Mr Ahern has been badly advised with regard to the scale of the A&E problem.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) has written to Mr Ahern restating that A&E overcrowding is a nationwide problem.

The INO has queried Mr Ahern’s claim that the problem only exists in five or six hospitals.

The INO has now offered to supply Mr Ahern with the trolley watch figures for the past number of months to demonstrate the level and frequency of overcrowding that is occurring in A&E units nationwide.

INO general secretary Liam Doran said it was disturbing to hear Mr Ahern state that his information suggests the overcrowding crisis is confined to a small number of hospitals.

“All the evidence, which should be compiled and given to him, readily confirms that the overcrowding is occurring in the majority of acute hospitals and it continues unabated,” Mr Doran said.

The INO staged the last of its series of lunchtime protests yesterday outside busy A&E wards at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, Co Dublin and St Columcille’s Hospital, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin.

The INO will review its position on further protests at its conference next week.