Fine Gael and Labour plan A&E drunk tanks

AGGRESSIVE drunks will be forced out of Accident and Emergency (A&E) and into special “wet rooms” under a €500 million rescue plan for casualty care units to be unveiled by Fine Gael and Labour today.

The move will also see up to 1,500 community care beds created across the country to end the A&E trolley crisis in two years.

The most controversial aspect of the joint initiative on health is the setting up of “drunk tank” wet rooms where people will be put on mattresses to sleep off the effects of alcohol.

They will be kept under the watch of security and medical staff.

An opposition source said: “Up to one in four people accessing A&E are under the influence of drink and can be an aggressive nuisance to patients and medical staff. Many do not need a bed for treatment purposes, but just want somewhere to sleep off the effects of alcohol. They can often make the A&E experience intolerable for patients who have to be there, like the elderly and children.

“It is best for everyone if they are taken to wet rooms where they can be watched and sleep off the effects of their drinking on mattresses away from everybody else.”

Security will be stepped up at A&E units, especially at weekends, under the proposals and people who repeatedly turn up in casualty drunk will face fines.

A&E units will be given a “user-friendly” makeover and be boosted by “fast-track” efficiency reforms. The “step down” community care beds will be introduced over two years with 600 slated for the greater Dublin area and between 600 and 900 for the rest of the country.

The care units will be built in the grounds of public hospitals and Fine Gael believes they will be more cost effective and quicker to introduce than Health Minister Mary Harney’s plan to bring-in 1,000 public use beds in private facilities.

“There are approximately 400 elderly patients in Dublin hospitals that have finished their medical treatment and cannot go home. As the number off people stranded on trolleys in A&E peaks at around 400 it is a simple and relatively quick solution to free up these beds for casualty patients,” the source added.

Care centres are also expected to form part of the opposition initiative. Up to 15 establishments would be set up across the country offering emergency facilities. They would operate on a 24-hour basis, be staffed by GPs and nurses and have diagnostic capabilities such as blood tests, X-rays and some observation beds.

According to the opposition plan, other proposals are set to include a new patient safety authority, free GP care to children under five and health screening for adults.

However, health service staff will be warned they must be more flexible in working practices in return for the investment and future benchmarking will be linked to performance.