The constant stream of patients from the regions to Dublin hospitals for elective procedures which could be carried out in their own areas is to be curtailed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) this year.
From now on the Dublin Academic Teaching Hospitals will only accept patients, public or private, for elective surgery such as hip operations or having tonsils removed if the service is not available in the patient's own region or if the patient has specifically been referred by a specialist in their own area.
The move is an attempt to reduce pressure on the Dublin teaching hospitals which include the Mater, Beaumont, St Vincent's, St James's and Tallaght hospitals.
The HSE, in a statement yesterday, said it also expected this to help ease A&E overcrowding.
The director of the HSE's national hospitals' office, Pat McLoughlin, has written to hospitals informing them of the new policy.
The extent of the burden placed by patients from outside Dublin on the capital's hospitals was quantified in a report by the former Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) in 2003.
It put the estimated cost of treating patients from other health board areas in 2001 at €174 million, and expressed concern that many of the referrals were inappropriate, were made by GPs, were of private patients and were affecting equity of access for patients in the east.
Meanwhile, the HSE said yesterday other initiatives would also be pursued this year that should help relieve overcrowding in A&E units in Dublin.
These include orders to hospitals to spread elective admissions over the week, rather than predominantly on Mondays and Tuesdays. Patients' discharges will also be planned from once the patient is admitted.
The HSE also said the construction of new units at three Dublin hospitals should also ease the A&E situation.
These include a new A&E unit at St Vincent's hospital due to open this month, the redevelopment and extension of St James's Hospital A&E department which is almost complete, and a new 33-bed A&E admissions unit with 25 transit beds at the Mater hospital, which commenced operation last month and will be fully operational shortly.
Meanwhile, the HSE has reiterated claims made before Christmas by Minister for Health Mary Harney that the number of patients who had to be treated on trolleys in A&E fell by 20 per cent between April and December.
"The average number of patients waiting for admission to the Dublin hospitals from A&E fell from 129 a day in April 2005 to 103 as of December 22nd last The average number of patients waiting daily for admission to hospitals nationally fell by 14 per cent between April and December 22nd last from 217 to 185," it said.
