Bed-blockers deny 150,000 hospital days to ill patients

MORE than 150,000 bed days were denied to patients awaiting treatment last year, due to cutbacks and a lack of alternative care facilities.

Patients declared fit for discharge had to be kept in hospital under a system known as bed-blocking because funding cutbacks meant they could not be sent to nursing homes or for rehabilitation.

This caused a bottleneck in the system, while 27,000 people remain on waiting lists for treatment.

The bed-blocking system also exacerbates pressure in A&E units. Yesterday, the Irish Nurses Organisation said there were 36 patients on trolleys at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, one who had been there since last Sunday.

At the Mater and Tallaght hospitals, 29 and 31 patients were on trolleys respectively, and 21 patients were on trolleys at James Connolly Memorial.

Irish Nursing Homes Association spokesman Paul Costello said there were 2,000 vacancies in private nursing homes, 600 of those in the eastern region, but some health boards had stopped contracting beds due to funding shortages.

Mr Costello said it would save money to place patients in nursing homes at a cost of 450-1,200 per week compared to the average €6,500 cost of a public hospital bed.

The major Dublin hospitals were the worst affected by bed-blocking. On average, 350 patients per day were occupying beds in the capital, despite having been assessed as clinically fit for discharge. Bed days lost to bed-blockers numbered 127,750 in the Mater, St Vincent's, St James', Beaumont and Tallaght Hospitals last year.

In Cork University Hospital (CUH), the figure was 6,078 and in the South Eastern Health Board region the figure was 6,688. The majority of beds were occupied by elderly people.

Meanwhile, there are more than 27,000 people still on hospital waiting lists despite a 31 million spend by the Government on the National Treatment Purchase Fund last year.

The longest waiting times for treatment are at Beaumont, the Mater, St Vincent's and Tallaght, the hospitals with the largest number of bed-blockers.

Labour spokeswoman for health, Liz McManus said: "There needs to be an indepth investigation as to why such an amount of bed-blocking is going on, especially when there are beds available in private nursing homes.

Fine Gael's health spokeswoman, Olivia Mitchell, said patients entitled to health board assistance in meeting nursing home costs were not receiving their entitlements and were being forced to remain in hospital.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the Government had awarded 12.6m to the health boards under its Bed Capacity Initiative to tackle bed-blocking this year.

Yesterday, the Eastern Regional Health Authority instructed the three health boards in its region to open 126 acute beds which were closed due to financial and staffing constraints.