Empty Mount Carmel beds to go to southsiders

Empty beds at the newly reopened Mount Carmel community hospital in south Dublin are to be reallocated in response to difficulties getting patients to transfer from hospitals on the northside, according to Minister for Health Leo Varadkar.

Mr Varadkar said the unused beds, which are fully staffed, would be assigned for use by patients from Tallaght and other nearby hospitals.

He was responding to a report in The Irish Times that 15 of the 65 stepdown beds were empty last week because of a reluctance by patients to cross the Liffey for convalescent care.

The Minister acknowledged there have been some difficulties getting patients to move from hospitals “on the other side of the city” to Mount Carmel.

The logical thing to do was to allocate the vacant beds to nearby hospital rather than force patients to move, as happens in the British health service.

Plans to open a community hospital similar to Mount Carmel on the north side of the city were in train, he added.

On the general overcrowding crisis in hospitals, Mr Varadkar admitted the provision of extra staff and beds earlier this year had not had the impact he anticipated. More acute beds would be opened for the winter, he promised.

He said the causes of the problem were very different in different hospitals, varying from bed management issues, length of hospital stay, the standard of primary care in an area and the level of admissions.

Admissions to hospital increased in August, “for reasons I can’t explain,” he said.