The number of patients treated by local district hospitals has dropped by more than half since 1980, according to Department of Health statistics. Writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent.
The figures, which will be published today in Health Statistics 2002, show the number of discharges fell from around 22,000 in 1980 to just below 9,000 in 2000. The drop is partly explained by the fall in bed numbers - from more than 2,500 in 1980 to below 2,000 three years ago - though bed numbers have risen slightly since 1994.
District and community hospitals are run by health boards and staffed by general practitioners. They provide minor surgery, obstetrics and paediatric services. The statistics show that the majority of local hospitals serve an increasingly ageing population, with some staying for lengthy periods.
The 48-bed Clonakilty District Hospital in Co Cork, for example, admitted 277 patients in 1999, though it discharged just 37 people during the year. The average length of stay in the hospital came to 405 days.
However, the figures for the hospital were sharply reversed the following year, when Clonakilty admitted 213 people and discharged 245. The average length of stay in 2000 fell dramatically to 69.9 days, according to the 250-page report.
Meanwhile, the statistics show significant differences in the admissions policies of health boards across the State.
Hospitals in the Eastern Health Board area discharged patients on average after 7.7 days - a far higher figure than revealed elsewhere. Midland Health Board hospitals sent patients home after 5 days; the Mid-Western discharged after 5.9 days, while the North Eastern Health Board did so after 5.3 days.
The Southern Health Board discharged on average after 6.5 days; the South Eastern Health Board did so after 5.3 days, while the Western Health Board did so after 6 days.
The calculations exclude the National Rehabilitation Clinic and orthopaedic patients in other hospitals because their stays are "substantially longer" than the average.
Meanwhile, breastfeeding rates vary widely across socio-economic groupings in the State, the figures show.
More than two-thirds of mothers from the higher professional groups breast-fed their children in 1999, while just 39 per cent of farmers' wives did so. Just 22 per cent of women married to unemployed men breast-fed that year, while just 14 per cent of those married to unskilled manual workers did so.
The figures also show that just over 40 per cent of children in care at the end of 2000 were of lone parents, while 18 per cent were of married couples. Children of cohabiting couples made up 13.8 per cent of the total.