HOSPITAL ADMISSION waiting lists averaged 137 last month, according to Minister for Health Mary Harney but Fine Gael has disputed the figure, claiming it never dropped below 300.
Ms Harney said there had been a 20 per cent improvement. “The average number of people waiting admission to hospital during the month of March was 137 people,” she said.
The HSE had set a lower waiting time target of six hours, with the aim that all patients would be “assessed, treated and discharged or admitted within six hours of arrival. Up to now, the focus has been on waiting times for those awaiting admission to hospital.”
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly questioned where the Minister got her figures. He said the Irish Nursing Organisation indicated that 340 people were on trolleys on March 31st; on March 27th the figure was 305; on March 24th it was 387; and 304 on March 20th. “The figure doesn’t dip below 300,” he said. “Five years after the Minister’s 10-point plan, we still have a mess with regard to patients on trolleys.
“It doesn’t matter how you dress up the figures” because “the reality, whether we like it or not, is that people are lying on trolleys in A&E units for two and three days at a time”.
The figures emerged during Dáil Health Questions and Ms Harney said “measuring patient statistics at 8am isn’t appropriate”. The HSE takes the measurement daily at 2pm and “according to this there has been a 20 per cent improvement”.
Ms Harney also said she expected improvements in the number of elective patients admitted to hospital on the day of their procedure. “The international target is 75 per cent,” but the Irish average is 30 per cent. A review of acute hospital beds showed “up to 140,000 beds a year could be freed up if Ireland was to reach best practice standard in this regard”.
But Dr Reilly dismissed this as “plans to address this issue rather than actual results”. The Minister planned to “cut another 600 beds from the system this year after cutting 500 last year”.
Ms Harney said the emphasis should be on how the beds are used and 75 per cent of patients for elective surgery should be admitted on the day. She said there had been infection issues in Beaumont, St Vincent’s and other hospitals in February and March, which affected the targets.
