The numbers of people on trolleys in emergency departments around the country could be higher next week, the head of the Health Service Executive has warned.
Tony O’Brien said once a certain level of pressure builds up in emergency departments, it is not “the easiest thing in the world to diffuse”.
The country was also not experiencing particularly high levels of flu and there was no frost on the streets, but that could change, the HSE chief said.
“The number could theoretically be higher on another day next week, but everything we are doing is designed to ensure that doesn’t happen,” Mr O’Brien said.
More than 600 people were on hospital trolleys in 28 hospital emergency departments around the country yesterday, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation survey Trolleywatch. The previous record in the 10-year history of the survey was 569.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's Morning Ireland programme, Mr O'Brien said the cause of the problem was the number of people in acute hospitals, whose acute care was completed, but who haven't been placed elsewhere.
“Since December there has been a particular focus on ensuring as many of those people as possible can receive the care appropriate to them in an appropriate setting,” he said.
He said there were 150 people more with delayed discharge than this time last year and there are “about 150 people more on trolleys”.
“So rather than seeking to open more capacity in hospitals, we are focusing on freeing up the capacity that is there,” he said.
Asked whether the closure of 639 hospital beds around the country could be connected to the 601 people on hospital trolleys, Mr O’Brien said: “there may be a numerical similarity”, adding “simplistic analyses don’t always work”.
He said, in theory, opening beds could impact on the numbers of people on trolleys but that the system had the right number of beds.
“Patients are in them who would be better placed elsewhere,” he said.
Mr O’Brien said he would not rule out reopening beds but that the focus now was on discharging those patients because it could be done “much more quickly”.
The HSE was concentrating on "clearing away all of the normal red tape that we are usually subject to" to get as many people moved as possible "irrespective of if they had completed their Fair Deal processes". He said the organisation had been working closely with Nursing Homes Ireland.
“They are not always exactly where people would want to go, but we do need to make sure that everyone who is in hospital, whose consultant has confirmed that there care is concluded, can be made an offer of a move immediately,” he said.
