The development of psychiatric services for older people could be slowed by a shortage of psychiatric nurses, the experience of one of the health boards in the eastern region suggests. A psychiatric service for older people was established at Tallaght Hospital in 1998, but a six-bed acute unit which was to form part of the service has never been opened because of nursing shortages.
"This service currently carries in the region of 45 nursing vacancies and it is not envisaged that sufficient nursing resources will be available in the near future to enable an acute service to be provided at this location," psychiatrist Dr Siobhán Barry was told in reply to a question to the South Western Area Health Board of which she is a member.
Instead, the unit is to be used as a base from which to provide services to people in their own homes. The "psychiatry of late life" as it is called has been expanding around the country with the appointment of specialists and a growing acknowledgement that psychiatric services for older people need to be developed.
However, the problems experienced at Tallaght Hospital suggest that their spread may be slower than hoped.
Geriatricians and consultants in old-age psychiatry are also worried about the lack of extended care facilities for older patients in the South Western Area Health Board which covers most of Kildare and part of Dublin.
The consultants have told the health board that about one in four of the patients, some of whom are extremely frail, die while waiting in the hospital for a long-stay placement, according to a recent report in the Irish Medical News.
Two-thirds of long-stay places in the Eastern Regional Health Authority, covering Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow, are in private nursing homes, while only one-third are in health board facilities, they point out. They add that the private facilities are often not entirely suitable for very frail, elderly patients.
"Superbugs" such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) pose a continuing threat to the health of hospital patients. MRSA bacteria are commonly found in hospitals and can affect patients whose immune systems have been compromised by surgery or illness. Infected people have to be treated with special antibiotics.
While northern European countries have made huge strides against MRSA, our record is closer to that of southern European countries where it remains a serious problem. In the fight against the bacteria, we need continual monitoring of the problem in Ireland: the State's first National MRSA Reference Laboratory opens in St James's Hospital, Dublin, tomorrow.
The £1 million purpose-built laboratory will also assist in the development of strategies and antibiotics to cope with MRSA.
National blood stocks remain good following the public response to the crisis of a couple of weeks ago. Stocks of all blood types were adequate yesterday with only B negative and AB negative in deficit. The Irish Blood Transfusion Service is hoping people will continue to donate in good numbers.