Irish hospitals often run at 105% capacity, Oireachtas health committee told

Consultants warn that it is accepted internationally that a bed occupancy rate of anything over 85% creates challenges in hospitals

University Hospital Limerick is 'a severe example' of overcrowding nationwide, members of the Irish Medical Organisation told politicians.

Irish hospitals are often running at 105% capacity, far above the internationally recommended rate of 85%, the Oireachtas health committee was told on a visit to University Hospital Limerick (UHL) on Monday.

UHL is "a severe example" of overcrowding nationwide, members of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), told politicians. On Monday, some 80 people were waiting on trolleys at UHL, again the highest figure in the country.

Dr Alan Watts and Dr John McManus, both consultants at UHL, attended the special meeting.

They said that internationally it is accepted a bed occupancy rate of anything over 85% creates challenges in freeing up beds for emergency admissions.

“When the patients waiting for admission on chairs and trolleys are taken into account the actual occupancy rates in Ireland often exceed 105%, which compromises care and increases mortality,” they said.

Services in Ennis and Nenagh were closed in 2009 as part of a reconfiguration policy and the medics said that adequate capacity was not made available in UHL at the same time — leading to the current issues. 

“The capacity was not sufficient to meet the needs of the population then and in the intervening years we have seen a rapid growth in population and significant growth in the elderly population,” the IMO said.

Research has shown, they said, overcrowding is “known to be associated with preventable death in patients attending Emergency Departments". 

Overcrowding has been proven to “delay time to antibiotics for patients suffering with sepsis, delay interventions for patients suffering heart attacks and strokes, delay the delivery of pain relief.” 

It is also linked to longer ambulance turnaround times they said. 

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Dr Peadar Gilligan, a member of the IMO’s consultant committee, urged the government to deliver an extra 5,000 beds to meet demand.

“To blame doctors or other healthcare staff for problems that have been directly caused by decades of under-investment, by successive governments, is unhelpful and is leading to even lower morale.,” he warned.

“There are simply not enough hospital beds, doctors, and allied health professionals to deliver the ever-increasing needs of the population.” 

He added: “Despite this, we have an ongoing recruitment freeze imposed by the HSE due to lack of funding from Government.” 

HSE ceo Bernard Gloster said at the weekend there is no end-date set for the recruitment freeze.