Concern over dramatic fall in emergency hospital admissions
A group representing patients has expressed concern over a significant fall in admissions and attendances at hospital emergency departments since the coronavirus outbreak took hold a month ago.
An analysis of emergency hospital admissions and attendances by the Irish Patients Association found that the number of attendances fell by 30% and the number of admissions fell by 24% since early March.
The analysis looked at weekly attendance and admission figures at six hospital groups across the country between February and March.
In a four-week period from Feb 11, more than 86,000 patients attended emergency departments and 24,000 patients had emergency admissions to hospitals.
Over the following four weeks, however, the number of attendances fell by 26,000 and admissions by almost 6,000.
The dramatic fall in attendances and admissions can be seen from March 17 onwards, as the Government began to phase in restrictions on social gatherings and movements in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The Irish Patients Association said lockdown measures will impact on the numbers but expressed concern that patients in need of treatment may be avoiding hospitals out of fear of getting infected by the virus.
“Our healthcare system was under enormous pressure with significant waiting lists evident for operations, to see a consultant, and to get off a trolley, right up to the day before Covid-19 arrived,” director of the Irish Patient Association, Stephen McMahon, told the Irish Examiner.
“Our concern is that as some of these public patients are deteriorating, they are putting off that visit to the emergency department perhaps out of fear of contagion of Covid-19 when they should be getting checked up,” he added.
Some patients may have serious symptoms, such as heart problems or a suspected cancer, that require urgent medical attention, he said, calling for the matter to be investigated further.
“In the past four weeks we have seen 26,013 fewer visits to emergency departments and a reduction of 5,874 in emergency admissions. This calls for an urgent understanding of the reasons why and the potential implications for patients,” Mr McMahon said.
“While just about everything is being done to flatten the curve for Covid-19 what plans are in place to flatten the potential surge in patients with non-Covid problems, who at present are not attending hospitals?“ he asked.
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