A week after the Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, asked the five main Dublin hospitals for information on the numbers of patients "blocking" beds in their hospitals, she has still only received the information from one of them.
Ms Harney said yesterday she needed to know what the exact position on bed blockers was before she could put together measures to alleviate A&E overcrowding.
Patients are backed up on trolleys in A&E departments across the State because of a shortage of inpatient beds. It is estimated that in the Dublin region alone between 300 and 400 acute hospital beds are "blocked" by patients fit for discharge but with nowhere to go.
The Minister said only the Mater Hospital has supplied her with figures. It has 77 long-stay patients fit for discharge if step-down facilities were available for them.
With more than 200 patients having to endure another day on trolleys in A&E units across the State yesterday, private nursing homes pointed out that they had ample numbers of vacant beds that could be used as step-down facilities, which would cost a fraction of hospital beds.
Ms Harney said she wanted to use those beds. "There are vacant beds in the private nursing home sector in the Dublin area. I want to use those beds to make sure that patients who don't require an acute bed which costs up to €5,000 a week are in those more appropriate facilities so that accident and emergency cases can be admitted to hospital quickly."
Speaking to reporters in Dublin, she said one couldn't but be very moved by the traumatic stories relayed by patients and families of patients on trolleys at the Mater and other hospitals in recent days.
"I don't want to see anybody in this country experiencing what those people have experienced over the last couple of days. And I said that even before this week. It is not acceptable, it is not good enough and it is not going to continue."
She said she was working on finding solutions which she hopes to unveil, within the context of the estimates, in the next few weeks. But she warned there were no quick-fix solutions.
"The solutions are not simple. And any solutions I come forward with will have to be sustainable. They won't be quick- fix. I won't be putting plaster on difficulties just to get over a temporary situation. I want a solution that is sustainable, that is workable, that makes sense from the patients' point of view in particular, but also of course from the taxpayers' point of view," she said.
"I have asked all of the Dublin hospitals to give me the data of the patients that are what's broadly called the bed blockers. I asked that of the chief executives last week. I've now received that data from the Mater Hospital - I look forward to receiving it from the other hospitals over the next couple of days. When I have that data I'll be in a better position to come forward with solutions to the difficulties that are being experienced," she added.
Furthermore, she said she wanted people attending A&E who didn't need to be admitted dealt with quickly "so that they are not waiting hours and hours for simple procedures".
When yesterday's Liveline programme on RTÉ asked nursing home owners to call the programme if they had empty beds that would accommodate those fit for discharge from hospital but with nowhere to go, it received details of over 300 vacant beds in homes in the greater Dublin area. It said it would forward the list to the Department of Health. Callers claimed funding was not being provided to patients to access these beds.
Patients are means tested before they can receive nursing home subventions from their health board. The maximum payable to those with no means is €680 a week.
The Eastern Regional Health Authority said it was "overly simplistic" to think it was possible to take all the people fit for discharge from acute hospitals and place them in private nursing home beds. Patients, it said, had the right to choose their own nursing home. "The nursing home of their choice is not always available, which leads to delays in their accessing nursing home care."
It also said many of those awaiting placement are not suitable for private nursing home care. One fifth of them, for example, require high-level care or rehabilitation only available in public facilities, it said.
Furthermore, it said that because of their income and assets, about 10 per cent were ineligible for subvention payments and "they or their families are unwilling to fund their private nursing-home care".
A&E watch: patients on trolleys
Mater Hospital 25
Beaumont Hospital 26
St Vincent's Hospital 11
Tallaght Hospital 40
(down to 13 by last night)
St James's Hospital 8
Naas General Hospital 15
James Connolly Memorial Hospital, Blanchardstown 8
St Columcille's Hospital, Loughlinstown 3
Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Limerick 6
University College Hospital, Galway 15
( down to six by last night)
Cavan General Hospital 18
(down to 12 in the afternoon)
Cork University Hospital 22
(down to 10 by last night)
Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda 8
Roscommon County Hospital 3
Wexford General Hospital 8
- Figures supplied by the Irish Nurses Organisation
Numbers of bed blockers in main Dublin hospitals
Mater Hospital 77
Tallaght Hospital 40
Beaumont Hospital 70
St James's Hospital not available
St Vincent's Hospital not available