Leo Varadkar says Beaumont A&E overcrowding will ease

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has predicted the overcrowding situation in Beaumont Hospital will ease over the next few days but has stressed the problem exists across the health services.

People have been asked to avoid Beaumont’s emergency department and potential patients have been urged to visit their GPs for treatment instead of arriving at the hospital in Dublin 9.

However, Mr Varadkar said the problem was not unique to Beaumont.

“The run-up to Christmas is always a very busy time in emergency departments,” he said. “Beaumont is under particular pressure but it’s not the only one.”

He said the hospital had introduced a number of measures, including postponing some elective admissions and discharging patients as much as possible.

“There also getting support essentially from the HSE, 19 step-down beds, additional home care packages and additional nursing home places to alleviate the pressure on the hospital.

“So I think we will see an alleviation in the next couple if days but it is a problem that exists across our health service and it’s something that requires a longer-term plan,” he said.

Poor management

Speaking at Temple Street Children’s Hospital, Mr Varadkar said there was huge variation from hospital to hospital in terms of over-crowding. Sometimes it was down to poor management and “patient flow” within individual hospitals, he said.

“It’s a funding issue in part but certainly not entirely,” he added.

He said an extra €25 million had been released to provide new home care packages and long-term care places that would alleviate pressures in the next couple of days.

“But even where there is funding in place there are difficulties, particularly in Dublin and also in Cork, there’s actually a shortage of nursing home places.”

To start building nursing homes now could take up to 18 months, “so this isn’t a problem that’s going to be solved overnight”, he said.

However, Mr Varadkar said a plan was in place.

He was announcing the launch of a new critical-care ambulance service to transfer seriously ill children between hospitals.