ADMISSION levels at one of the country’s largest hospitals were said to be at normal levels yesterday having reached “dysfunctional status” last week.
Early last week there were 33 emergency department admissions awaiting hospital beds at the Mater hospital in Dublin, leading chief executive officer Brian Conlon to circulate an email saying the hospital had reached “escalation level 4” or “dysfunctional status”.
This status indicates that patients coming through the emergency department are waiting on trolleys for more than 24 hours, and that there were at least 10 emergency cases awaiting admission without beds available for them.
This led to the cancellation of surgical day cases to one of the hospital’s largest wards, St Michael’s, and to the cancellation of out-patient follow-up appointments.
A spokesman for the hospital said yesterday that the escalation level had been invoked to co-ordinate and increase throughput of patients throughout the hospital.
By Friday, that status was brought down to level 2 or “pressures in emergency department experienced” status, meaning patients in the emergency department were waiting for over 12 hours and that there were five emergency admissions pending with no beds available.
This has since been revised down to level 1 status or “normal working” level, and as of 2pm yesterday seven people were awaiting admission to the hospital having gone through the emergency department.