Health service overcrowding leading to avoidable patients deaths, doctors warn

Health service overcrowding is leading to unnecessary patient deaths, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has warned on the first day of its annual conference.

The “capacity crisis” in health is the focus of the organisation’s first in-person conference since the Covid-19 pandemic, taking place in Killarney until Saturday.

“It’s now inevitable that overcrowding and understaffing in the health service is causing avoidable fatalities and poor health outcomes,” incoming IMO president Dr John Cannon warned at the start of the conference on Thursday.

“Tragically, it is inevitable that this capacity crisis is contributing to increased avoidable mortality because patients are being treated in overcrowded hospitals or treatment is being delayed in primary or secondary care settings as capacity cannot meet patient need.”

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This was compounded by problems with recruitment and retention of staff which has seen the HSE struggle to fill roles left by retiring GPs or the 900-plus consultant posts that are not filled on a permanent basis, he said.

“There is a shortage of doctors globally and we are simply not doing enough to either retain our workforce or to attract much needed doctors back to Ireland.

“Too few beds means overcrowding in emergency departments and long waits to access a hospital bed. Unfilled consultant posts mean longer waiting lists for outpatient and consequent treatment. Too few GPs means waiting times for appointments, with at least 10 per cent of the population being unable to sign up with a GP because their patient lists are at capacity.”

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly is due to address the conference on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) has called for the provision of subsidised accommodation for health staff to help retain a stable workforce.

The “spiralling” cost of accommodation is a major concern, particularly for young nurses and those contemplating a return from abroad, the association’s annual conference in Tullow, Co Carlow, heard.

“The cost of purchasing property, and increasingly of renting, in the major cities is prohibitive and is outstripping nurses pay, and this in turn is feeding into the nursing recruitment and retention crisis,” PNA general secretary Peter Hughes told the conference.

Nursing shortages are impacting at every level of the mental health service and the problem has escalated since the decline of Covid due to a resumption of nurse emigration and retirement, he said.

“Services are now experiencing a very high level of nurses emigrating to Australia and Canada in particular. Furthermore, nurses, who were eligible to retire and who stayed on to support services are now finally retiring.”