Sir, – With regard to the ongoing hospital overcrowding crisis, a national conversation must be opened up about the plight of people with dementia languishing in our hospital wards awaiting discharge either to appropriate facilities or home with the appropriate services and supports in place.
Writing on this page (January 13th), the clinical professor of emergency medicine at St James's Hospital, Patrick Plunkett, said those waiting for nursing home places for three to four months in overcrowded hospitals, many with dementia, could be compared to victims of institutional abuse.
The Alzheimer Society of Ireland has long raised the issue of how delayed discharges are adversely impacting people with dementia in this country, and yet delays to the Fair Deal scheme continue to hurt our most vulnerable members of society.
There are currently 48,000 people living with dementia in Ireland – a figure set to rise exponentially in the coming years. Research produced by Dr Suzanne Cahill at Trinity College Dublin demonstrates how up to 25 per cent of patients in hospitals at any one time can have dementia.
While a steep rise in the number of delayed discharges of people occupying beds unnecessarily is being blamed for much of the rise in overcrowding in recent months, we must be cognisant of the fact that behind every headline is untold suffering for people living with dementia and their loved ones.
People living with dementia are particularly vulnerable to the negative impact of delayed discharge from hospital; it can adversely affect their health, cognition and overall wellbeing.
As a result, adequate funding needs to be put in place now to discharge people to appropriate settings, whether that is care at home, in other community settings, in step-down facilities or nursing homes.
It also further highlights the importance of implementing the key tenets of the National Dementia Strategy which was published last month – that is the provision of adequate intensive homecare and community supports.
While hospital admissions can cause enormous distress and are associated with functional decline in older people with dementia, community-based supports make living at home possible and delay premature admission to long-term care and unnecessary stays in acute hospitals.
Political will and leadership are what is needed now to ensure there is a strategic approach to dementia care in this country for the protection of our most vulnerable people. – Yours, etc,
GERRY MARTIN
Chief Executive,
Alzheimer Society of Ireland
Temple Hill,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.