Patients sent home to wait for free beds

PATIENTS at a Dublin hospital are being asked to “queue” at home for a bed rather than in an overcrowded A&E department.

The ‘queue at home’ system, adopted by the Mater Hospital with the approval of its board, means some patients judged fit for admission on assessment in A&E are being advised to wait at home for beds by individual consultants.

A spokesperson for the hospital said it was to alleviate the trauma of waiting on trolleys and chairs, which can last for days.

Recent minutes of the Mater’s medical executive described the hospital’s A&E department as “inhumane and degrading”, according to a report in this week’s Medicine Weekly.

Dr Conor O’Keane, consultant pathologist and honorary secretary of the medical executive, said the move, adopted on a trial basis by individual consultants for non-acute patients, was a “crisis response to a crisis situation”.

Dr O’Keane said up to 10 patients could be waiting at home at any one time, some for up to a week. “This is a significant number of people who, under ideal circumstances, would be in hospital.” More than 200 patients were sent home to wait between December of last year and May of this year.