Injuries sustained by late-night drinkers in Dublin's Temple Bar have reached such alarming levels that a special accident and emergency unit may be set up in the area to deal with them.
The unit would be expected to ease the "unprecedented pressure" on the city's five leading hospitals, where 20 per cent more patients pass through every day than at this time last year.
The prospect of a special Temple Bar A&E unit was raised at the second meeting of the Dublin-Mid Leinster Regional Health Forum in Tullamore yesterday. This is one of the structures set up by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to allow local public representatives, in the absence of health boards, to be updated regularly.
John Bulfin, a hospital network manager with the HSE, told the meeting the idea of an A&E in Temple Bar is being considered by the city's ambulance service to keep the injured drinkers "away from the inner city A&E units". He said the unit would deal with "trips, falls, cuts and abrasions", the standard fare for those referred from Temple Bar.
Describing the Dublin A&E crisis as "unprecedented", Louise McMahon of the HSE quoted figures which showed extreme pressure coming on the five major teaching hospitals in the city - the Mater, Beaumont, St Vincent's, Tallaght, and St James's.
Ms McMahon, who presented a special report on the A&E crisis, denied suggestions from one forum member that she was putting "a PR spin" on them.
She said among the factors contributing to the crisis was the delayed discharge from hospital of patients who no longer needed acute hospital care. In many cases, these patients were elderly, Ms McMahon said, and hadn't back-up support to allow them to return home.
On one day last month, there were a total of 411 "delayed discharges" in the five key Dublin hospitals, and the figure was consistently running at about 300.
She said this placed pressure on the A&E departments as it reduced the number of beds available for admissions. The flu and winter vomiting viruses also showed "significant increases" this year, she added.
Ms McMahon and her colleague Mr Bulfin said the solution to the A&E crisis involved more than just putting extra beds into hospitals. "In Tallaght, 67 per cent of admissions self-refer, in that they don't go to a GP first. There is no GP in the area out-of-hours so they are going straight to the hospital," said Mr Bulfin, who added that some hospitals are also looking at setting up their own GP units on-site to alleviate pressure on their A&E unit.
Cllr Nicky Kelly (Wicklow) criticised the report produced by Ms McMahon, and said it was an effort to "air-brush out of history" people lying on trolleys in A&E wards throughout the region. He said it was "a PR spin".