Drugs, alcohol listed in 20,000 hospital discharges

THERE were almost 20,000 acute hospital discharges last year — 14,000 of which were for men and 145 of which were under 15 — where a mental or behavioural disorder after taking alcohol or psychoactive substances was part of the final diagnosis.

The figures were published as part of the ERSI’s annual Activity in Acute Public Hospitals in Ireland report, which reveals there were 50,000 discharges of people who had a mental illness listed in their diagnoses, though this may not have been the primary reason why they were in hospital.

The report distinguishes between first-listed (initial) diagnoses, and all-listed (any other condition discovered during the hospital stay) diagnoses.

Under the all-listed diagnosis category there were more than 7,300 discharges from hospital where people were poisoned by drugs and other biological substances. It is not known how many of these may have related to head-shop products reported to the national poison information centre this year.

There were more than 3,260 cases where people suffering from alcoholic liver disease visited acute hospitals last year, and 619 discharges for tuberculosis sufferers, 36 for under 15-year- olds.

The report tells us that more than 1.41 million discharges were reported by the participating hospitals compared with 1.37 million discharges in 2008, an increase of 3.1%.

Diseases and disorders of the kidney or urinary tract were the major diagnostic category (MDC) for which people were discharged from acute public hospitals last year.

Medical card holders accounted for just under half (46.6%) of in-patient discharges. In-patients discharged with a medical card stayed an average of 7.9 days in hospital, which was on average 3.4 days longer than in-patients discharged without a medical card.

More than half of discharges were day patients (58.2%); the remainder were in-patients (41.8%). Day patient discharges increased by 6.4% and in-patient discharges fell by 1.2% between 2008 and 2009.

The average length of stay for acute in-patients was 4.5 days. This varied by hospital type as voluntary hospitals recorded an average length of stay of 5.9 days for acute in-patients compared with 4.4 days reported for regional hospitals.

Day patient activity peaked in July 2009. Planned in-patient admissions peaked in September, emergency in-patient admissions peaked in March and maternity admissions peaked in July.

Almost 65% of all in-patients discharged underwent a principal procedure, with an average of 2.8 procedures performed for each discharge.