Coma victim hit by long-stay bed shortage

A YOUNG woman in a coma was forced to spend almost three years at an acute Cork hospital as more suitable community care could not be found for her.

The woman has since died from pneumonia.

Doctors had repeatedly tried to find a more appropriate facility for the woman, but an extreme shortage of long-stay beds for high dependency patients has meant that those aged under 65 can wait five to 10 years before a place becomes available.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) has said it plans to introduce 100 more such beds by the end of the year as part of its 10-point plan to ease overcrowding at the country's accident and emergency units.

Cardiologist Dr Niall Colwell, who had taken charge of the case, said the patient spent 960 days in a vegetative state at the Mercy University Hospital after she suffered anoxic brain damage following resuscitation.

"Because you are so debilitated, you cannot move or breathe properly, and because you are in tertiary referral centre, you are wide open to a superbug," he told the Irish Medical Times.

"There are long-term beds, but there are so few of them none outside Dublin and Cork that they are invariably blocked up," said Dr Colwell.

"The patient was in a university teaching hospital setting, which is a tertiary referral centre. I do not think that is suitable."

A spokesman for the HSE Southern Area and the Mercy University Hospital yesterday said that they could not comment on this particular case.

Yesterday, there were 331 patients on trollies in the country's A&Es, including 45 at Beaumont Hospital and 51 at Tallaght.

The Irish Nurses Organisation, which is due to hold another set of lunchtime protests today over A&E overcrowding, has said the HSE moves to develop step-down beds are already five months behind schedule.