Facilities inadequate for many with head injuries

Many head injury sufferers have little chance of receiving their hospital care in a "full rehabilitation" bed, an acquired brain injury seminar has heard.

Some 10,000 people annually are admitted to hospital with a head injury and of these around 1,400 will still require hospital care after a year. However, there are only 40 full rehabilitation beds in the State. All of these are based in the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) in Dun Laoghaire.

"With 40 beds, we can hope to take 400 people a year. That leaves a shortfall of 1,000 patients," Dr Mark Delargy, director of the brain injury rehabilitation service in Dún Laoghaire said. "These people are generally left to take up an acute hospital bed. Alternatively we have to send them to the UK for rehabilitation."

While brain injury sufferers are cared for in acute hospital beds, Dr Delargy said, these are the wrong type of bed for their needs.

The NRH is the only facility with full rehabilitation teams consisting of a doctor, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, psychologist and social worker.

"In Beaumont and Cork, most parts of these teams are available, but throughout the regional hospitals there are huge gaps. There should be complete teams in every major hospital, but the health boards don't seem to be treating this with any vigour - we'd get a super-duper new machine far quicker than a speech therapist," said Dr Delargy.

The seminar was organised by Headway Ireland, the national association for acquired brain injury.