No place for hundreds of long-stay patients

MORE than 450 patients will have spent this Christmas in hospital because the HSE has not put in place adequate step-down facilities.

One hundred of these patients are in St James’s hospital in Rathgar, Dublin.

While it is planned to transfer cancer services from St Luke’s to St James’s hospital, the HSE refuses to give a commitment to create a long-term step-down community facility in St Luke’s, which is an ideal setting for older people as south Dublin is already short of long-stay beds. Many patients rightly refuse to transfer to beds in counties Wicklow, Meath and Kildare as they will invariably see few of their friends and put a huge strain on their families.