Hospital seeks HSE meeting over beds crisis

A DUBLIN hospital which this week admitted cancelling major surgery because all its intensive care beds were occupied is to seek an urgent meeting with the Health Service Executive (HSE).

The decision was made on foot of a meeting of the board of St James’s Hospital yesterday. On Monday, 20 surgical operations were cancelled at the hospital due to a lack of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. The hospital will ask the HSE to address the shortage as a matter of urgency.

In response to the statement from St James’s, the HSE said it welcomed the opportunity to discuss the current crisis in the ICU at the hospital. On Monday, all 14 ICU beds were occupied as well as four high-dependency beds. Two beds in the theatre post-operative recovery area were also occupied. This affected the hospital’s capacity to carry out operations on patients who would be in need of intensive care after their operation, hence the cancellations. On Tuesday, a further two operations had to be cancelled because of the pressure on ICU beds.

St James’s said the lack of beds is a long-standing and growing problem within the hospital system, which has received interim remedies but still awaits a long-term solution.

The HSE said it was aware of the pressure on ICU capacity in St James’s Hospital this week. Re-iterating a statement it issued on Wednesday, it offered “full support in terms of assistance to fast-track post- acute patients to other settings to free up ICU beds”. The statement also repeated an offer of assistance in upgrading beds within the hospital to provide higher dependency capacity.

The HSE said it looked forward to meeting with the hospital “to discuss their current difficulties”.

To address this issue in the long-term, the HSE has embarked on a national Bed Capacity Review including an assessment of critical care bed needs.

Earlier this week, the HSE had pointed the finger of blame for the ICU crisis at hospital management in St James’s, saying it had increased ICU bed capacity by more than 50% in the past three years.

The HSE said it would be “asking hospital management to explain why these difficulties have resurfaced at this time”.