Overcrowding crisis: 260 people waiting for beds in acute hospitals – HSE

A total of 260 people were waiting for beds in acute hospitals, including children’s hospitals, throughout the State as of 8am on Saturday, new figures from the Health Service Executive (HSE) show.

The figures are 71 per cent higher than this day last year. However, they are considerably lower than the figure of 398 recorded at the same time on Friday and down from a figure of 535 people waiting on hospital trolleys on Friday evening.

The worst impacted hospitals on Saturday are Cork University Hospital, which has 23 patients waiting on beds, St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, which has 20 in the queue for beds, and Sligo University Hospital with 19 on the wait list. A total of 577 people are in hospital with Covid-19 as of 8am on Saturday.

On Tuesday, a record 931 people were waiting for medical care on trolleys. This represents the highest figure since the State began keeping records. Hospital and community healthcare staff have been asked to work this weekend and over the next few weekends to help ease the pressure further.

Calls have been made to the HSE to use all available resources – including hospitals that have been downgraded in the past – to address the overcrowding crisis facing hospitals throughout the country.

Independent TD Deputy Denis Naughten told RTÉ's Six One News that a radical review of policy is needed.

The Roscommon-based TD said that assessment units, such as the one in Roscommon hospital, should be better utilised as a matter of urgency.

“There is absolutely now an opportunity at using the smaller hospitals to take pressure off the bigger hospitals. It is amazing that here we have a crisis in this country at the moment being replicated in the UK.

“In both jurisdictions they closed smaller units and transferred to bigger hospitals leading, I believe, to the crisis we have today.”

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There is also pressure on pharmacies throughout the country following a surge in the number of people who are seeking both prescription and over the counter remedies.

Pharmacist Niamh Boden of Dunville Pharmacy in Ranelagh, Co Dublin, told the radio show that most families experienced sickness over Christmas resulting in an increased need for over the counter medication.

“We are having trouble keeping cough bottles in stock, decongestant tablets and throat sprays for sore throats.”

GPs have expressed concern about the capacity to handle the demand from patients seeking appointments because of a marked increase in respiratory illnesses in the community.

Meanwhile, the Irish Medical Organisation’s GP Committee chairman Dr Denis McCauley said he is worried about sending his patients to hospital because if you have a sick person sitting on a chair for 40 hours waiting for a bed “their health outcomes are not going to be as good as if they are on ward”.

In an interview on the Brendan O’Connor show on RTÉ Radio 1, Dr McCauley said he had a patient who told him the hospital he attended was without a bed in the emergency department (ED) to examine him on so they offered to send him to a bed in the Covid part of the ED.

“I feel worried about sending people in to hospital. That is no indictment of our colleagues and nurses in hospital. You are sending somebody in to hospital because you can’t look after them but they know that the care they are going to get is not as good as it should be,” he said.

[ Q&A: Why are hospitals so overcrowded and is there anything that can be done? ]

“It is sad and it is worrying. We do our best. The hospital does their best. During the summer the hospitals were under pressure anyway. I have seen flus like this before but the hospitals were able to cope. Now they can’t.”

Dr McCauley said during the Covid pandemic an association was made that if you had any respiratory symptoms you should contact your GP.

“That was the appropriate thing to do at that time. Now it is not. That is not a blame issue, it is just that patients have been reconditioned. It is a good idea to recondition them back. And say if you have a viral illness, it doesn’t matter if it is strep or Covid – if you feel under the weather just stay at home.”

“So the simple message is: if you have a viral illness, stay at home. You don’t need to seek your doctor. You don’t need to do a Covid test unless you are over 55. Just stay at home and get better.

“If you have a child and the temperature is still up after 48 hours. Even if they are okay, I think I would proceed to see your doctor then. That is quite reasonable.”

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Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) is consulting its members on whether to strike over unsafe staffing levels.

Prof Anthony Staines, head of health systems in the school of nursing in DCU, said the Government would be faced with no choice but to find solutions to hospital overcrowding if nurses decide to take industrial action over staffing levels.

Prof Staines told Newstalk that the move could pressure the Government to “start making some of the hard decisions”.

“It’s not going to make things better for staff or patients if there are fewer nurses working in the wards. This is a message to really stop talking about making changes and start making changes.”