Figures show fewer patients on trolleys

There was a significant drop yesterday in the number of patients on trolleys in hospital accident and emergency departments.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) said the fall indicated that the rise in numbers earlier in the week had not been due to outbreaks of the winter vomiting bug, but rather to bad management in hospitals.

The INO said 335 patients were on trolleys yesterday awaiting admission to hospitals compared with 495 for Wednesday. The Health Service Executive put the numbers on trolleys at 239.

It agreed with the INO that overall, trolley numbers had fallen by about 40 per cent on the previous day. However it said those on trolleys at the Mater Hospital in Dublin actually increased yesterday while those at Tallaght Hospital, also in Dublin, remained unchanged.

The general secretary of the INO, Liam Doran, said that the fact that the numbers of patients on trolleys could fall by 40 per cent within 24 hours, against the continuing backdrop of the winter vomiting bug in a number of hospitals, indicated that the real problem lay not in the outbreak of the virus but rather in how some centres were managed.

Mr Doran said that the glare of publicity surrounding the spike in numbers had forced management in some hospitals to actually deal with the issue.

The secretary general of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, Finbarr Fitzpatrick, said overcrowding in accident and emergency units was due to a shortage of beds. A spokesman said numbers attending A&E departments went up and down periodically and that spikes did occur.

Minister for Health Mary Harney said yesterday 100 beds had been closed in the acute hospital system due to the winter vomiting bug.

The HSE is to establish a new dedicated task force to tackle the A&E crisis, in accident and emergency departments.

The task force which will seek to tackle problems affecting a group of about 15 hospitals. The new task force is expected to include a geriatrician and a consultant in accident and emergency medicine.

The HSE has not yet identified the hospitals with which the new task force will work. However it is expected to include both Tallaght and the Mater hospitals where there have been problems with regard to overcrowding in accident and emergency in recent months.

The HSE said that the number of patients on trolleys at the Mater increased yesterday from 23 to 25, while those on trolleys at Tallaght Hospital remained at 26 for a second day.

Meanwhile St Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin said 10 new cases of the winter vomiting virus had been recorded there yesterday. To date there had been 94 cases of the bug recorded, it said, of which 39 were symptomatic.

"The hospital is taking all the necessary precautions to curtail the spread of this highly contagious virus but the number of wards affected has risen to 22, including parts of the emergency department."