CUH loses 24 beds in cutback drive

One of the country’s largest hospitals — which is already facing chronic overcrowding — has lost 24 surgical beds as part of plans to “improve efficiency” in the system.

Under the HSE South regional service plan, Cork University Hospital yesterday lost the inpatient beds as part of the cutbacks drive.

The move has been defended as a way to reduce costs while also increasing the number of day patients seen in all facilities.

This is part of national plans to ensure hospitals can operate under reduced budgets, while shortening waiting times for certain procedures, because patients will be seen on a same day of procedure basis, instead of waiting overnight.

However, staff have raised concerns the moves will have a reverse impact on patients attempting to gain access to services.

The reduction in CUH resources comes at a time when the facility is facing one of the most chronic overcrowding emergency department crises in the country.

Despite an overall reduction in emergency department trolley counts, CUH has recently seen as many as 57 people waiting on trolleys in a single day.

Between Monday and Friday, 189 people were forced to wait on trolleys, including 35 on Monday, 57 on Tuesday — the highest in almost a year — 29 on Wednesday, 35 on Thursday and 33 on Friday.

In a statement, a HSE spokesperson said the CUH surgical bed closures are needed to ensure the hospital can cope with a €19m budget reduction this year.

Meanwhile, the HSE is planning to end medical card application waits by the end of next month.

The ambitious target, which if successful will mean a current backlog of 31,456 applications is resolved in less than eight weeks, was revealed during a Joint Oireachtas Health Committee visit to the medical card central applications office in Finglas, Dublin.