MORE THAN 272,000 bed days were “lost” in acute hospitals around the country last year as a result of the delayed discharge of patients, new figures show.
The figures provided by the Health Service Executive also reveal that the problem of beds being inappropriately used is getting worse, with almost 50,000 more bed days being lost as a result of delayed discharges in 2009 when compared to 2008.
Dublin hospitals are worst affected, with over 49,000 bed days lost at St James’s Hospital last year due to delayed discharges, more than 43,000 bed days lost at Beaumont Hospital and in excess of 34,000 lost at the Mater hospital.
Elsewhere across the State more than 10,600 bed days were lost at Cork University Hospital, more than 7,000 were lost at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and Wexford General Hospital and over 5,000 were wasted at St Luke’s hospital in Kilkenny.
The vast majority of the patients whose discharges were delayed were over 65 years of age.
Delayed discharge patients are those who no longer need to be in an acute hospital but may need less costly step-down care but do not have access to it.
The new figures, released to Fine Gael’s health spokesman Dr James Reilly in response to a parliamentary question, come at a time when hundreds of patients are again having to wait on trolleys in hospital emergency departments due to lack of vacant in-patient beds.
Figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) early yesterday showed there were 475 patients on trolleys awaiting admission.
Dr Reilly said the high number of patients who are in acute hospital beds when they need other care is seriously cutting down on our hospital capacity, while other patients are having operations cancelled because there are no beds available.
“Eighty-five per cent of these patients are over 65 which shows there is a real problem for elderly patients who need to be in convalescent, rehabilitation, nursing home or supported home care but have no place to go.”