HOSPITALS have begun to reopen closed beds in a bid to relieve overcrowding in emergency departments which reached record levels yesterday. The Department of Health confirmed last night that individual hospitals are managing the situation through a range of measures including “opening closed beds, cancellation and deferral of elective procedures and the use of day wards for emergency department activity”.
There were 569 patients on trolleys waiting for beds early yesterday, up from a record-breaking 511 a day earlier. As the trolley crisis worsened, consultants at two Dublin hospitals warned that patients on trolleys in overcrowded emergency departments across the State are in danger of picking up infections such as swine flu.
Overcrowding was worst at Cork University Hospital with 48 patients on trolleys. Dr Chris Luke, an emergency medicine consultant at the hospital, said the situation at CUH was the worst he had seen in his 11 years at the facility. He rejected suggestions by the Health Service Executive that the overcrowding was due primarily to increases in seasonal admissions due to strains of the flu virus, and ice-related injuries, with CUH seeing one case of swine flu every two or three days.
The main factor was bed closures, he said. CUH, which has postponed elective surgery, said the situation should ease next week when it opens a 23-bed acute medicine unit.
Dr John McInerney, honorary secretary of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine and an emergency consultant at the Mater hospital, said his hospital had reopened a ward to cope. He was concerned that patients being kept for hours or days on trolleys would pick up swine flu as more patients present with flu-like illness. “There is going to be a possible contagion effect,” he said.
He also fears the trolley crisis will get worse before it gets better, citing bed closures and a significant number of delayed discharge patients as the main reasons. He said the lack of beds, a shortage of junior doctors, swine flu and another cold spell could be enough to tip the health system “over the edge”.
Dr Pat Plunkett, a consultant in emergency medicine at St James’s Hospital, said he believed swine flu would spread in overcrowded emergency departments. “I’ve no doubt it will and is happening in emergency departments in this country at the moment,” he said.
The Department of Health said that in addition to reopening beds and cancelling routine surgery, hospitals will try to free up beds by carrying out further ward rounds and discharging in-patients where appropriate.
There was no specific comment from Minister for Health Mary Harney. The HSE said the numbers on trolleys had been reduced to 259 by yesterday afternoon. It said a number of factors contributed to the surge in emergency department activity including an increase in the number of patients presenting with swine flu, flu-like illnesses and other seasonal illnesses. Hospitals were taking all necessary steps to deal with the surge, it added.