Drumm: needless use of hospitals

THE equivalent of a complete new hospital would be available to the health system if patients were only admitted when they needed to be, according to Prof Brendan Drumm.

The chief executive of the Health Service Executive said too many patients were being admitted to wards unnecessarily. A simple change of philosophy among hospital managers and doctors would free up a lot of space for patients from accident and emergency departments.

“You have to ask why do weekend discharge rates drop way down, when you should be allowed go home on Saturdays if you can. We need to move to a situation where people who need day surgery are not admitted unnecessarily, instead of having people admitted one, two or three days before surgery.

“These are all very practical measures and, if you bring about these changes alone, you would free up the equivalent of a whole hospital every day.”

Prof Drumm made his comments at a meeting of the Southern Regional Health Forum in Cork County Hall. He spoke on a number of issues, including staffing levels at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) which will officially open today.

He said, although CUMH had not met its staffing target, it was among the best-resourced units in Europe and it was hard to justify allocating extra personnel when maternity services in places such as Drogheda were under more pressure.

This was disputed by Councillor Tim Lombard who said the HSE had entered into staffing agreements before the maternity hospital opened and these should be honoured.

The HSE’s assistant national director for the southern region, Barry O’Brien, said it was working to fulfil these objectives, but had been delayed. He said the HSE was trying to find extra staff within Ireland and through international recruitment agencies.

Prof Drumm also addressed the issue of the temporary recruitment freeze announced by the HSE this month. In an organisation of 120,000 people, he said the freeze would only affect 300 posts and should not be deemed a crisis.

“As I keep saying to people, this is an organisation of 120,000 people and if this collapses the services we are in a lot of trouble.

“We have a responsibility to the taxpayer to balance our books,” he said.

The HSE chief executive also announced the headline figures for a major new research project on public satisfaction with the Irish health system. Minister Mary Harney will launch the research within weeks. It will show in excess of 90% of people are happy with the service.