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.