2,500 people cannot access in-patient hospice beds
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.