2,500 people cannot access in-patient hospice beds

There are just 155 hospice beds available at a time when there should be 450, it emerged at yesterday’s meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children

Around 2,500 people cannot access an in-patient hospice bed because they do not exist, the Irish Hospice Association told the committee during the first of a series of hearings into end-of-life care.

“We have 155 hospice beds today. According to national HSE plans, we should have 450,” said Sharon Foley, chief executive of the Irish Hospice Foundation. “We have plenty of strong national plans around specialist palliative care. But we fall down, again and again, when it comes to putting policy into practice.

“There must be a strategy for the entire population — from those who need GP support to those who need specialist palliative care to manage their pain and other complex symptoms.”

Ms Foley said the budget for specialist palliative care this year was €72m, about one third of the cost of running one Dublin hospital for the year, and there had been repeated spending cuts.

She said there were three regions with no in-patient hospice unit: the North-East, the Midlands and the South-East, as well as Kerry, Wicklow, Mayo and Roscommon.

“It’s unacceptable that inequity remains throughout the country, with some people able to access a full range of services and others with equal need denied the access,” she said.

Prof Eamon O’Shea from the Irish Centre for Gerontology at NUI Galway called for an improvement in the physical environment where people die, with greater availability of single rooms and bereavement services and facilities for families and friends.

Dr Brian Creedon, chair of the Irish Palliative Medicine Consultants Association, said there needed to be a dedicated, national, palliative care budget and one entity responsible for palliative care. The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children will produce a report on end-of-life care following the hearings.