NEARLY €3 million in additional funding is to be provided to hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Galway in an attempt to tackle problems in their emergency departments.
The cash – approved by the Department of Health’s new special delivery unit – is to come from funding originally allocated by the Government to the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
The largest sum of €730,000 is to go to the Mater hospital in Dublin. Beaumont Hospital is to receive €407,000, St Vincent’s hospital/St Columcille’s hospital €448,000, Tallaght hospital €306,675, Galway University Hospital €349,000 and Cork University Hospital €429,000.
The funding is conditional on the hospitals ensuring that ward rounds are carried out seven days per week to allow for the discharge of patients and on progressing the implementation of the HSE’s overall acute medicine programme.
Hospitals will not be allowed to offset the additional capacity provided on foot of the additional special delivery unit funding by cutting back elsewhere.
At Cork University Hospital the provision of the additional money is on condition that up to Christmas and in January 2012 “no patient will wait more than 23 hours in the emergency department and that the trolley wait target will be maintained at least 70 per cent below the maximum daily trolley count since January 2010”.
The extra funding will stay in place until the end of the year. However, the department said that the measures, which are aimed at easing pressure on the emergency unit, will continue next year as a consequence of funding allocated by the Health Service Executive.
The money to be provided to the Mater is earmarked for the provision of assisted discharge packages, intermediate beds, increased bed capacity for low acuity purposes and to allow for the reopening of 17 step-down beds at St Mary’s Hospital in the Phoenix Park.
At Beaumont the additional money is to go towards purchasing assisted discharge care packages, increasing bed capacity through the development of a 31-bed ward, provision of rapid access nurse service on seven days per week basis and extending cardiology diagnostics during the week and on Saturdays to enable the discharge of four patients each weekend.
At St Vincent’s/St Columcille’s the money is to go towards the provision of 229 assisted discharge packages at the rate of seven per week, the opening of a 40-bed ward for low acuity patients and eight step-down beds in Leopardstown Park Hospital.
In Tallaght, the money will allow, among other things, for the opening of a 12-bed ward for low acuity patients and the discharge of 10 patients to a single nursing home.
In Galway the additional money will allow for the hospital’s medical assessment unit to remain in operation around the clock, the opening of an eight-bed five-day unit for the remainder of the year, provision of off-site convalescence care for two-week periods for six patients per week for the remainder of the year as well as enhanced interim care packages.
In Cork the additional funding will allow for the reinstatement of 35 community support beds by next month, the provision of additional MRI, ultrasound and CT scanning services for patients in the emergency department and acute medical unit and the allocation of additional nursing support.