THE DELAYED discharge of patients caused the loss of 165,293 bed days in hospitals last year and 85,232 bed days for the first five months of this year, according to new HSE figures.
The figures were released to Fine Gael TD Damien English, following a parliamentary question. However, they do not reveal the full extent of bed days lost as no figures were available for the Mater Hospital, while data for Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and Sligo General Hospital did not include 2007 figures.
The number of bed days lost is counted as the number of days spent in an acute hospital after the date the patient has been deemed medically fit for discharge.
Last year, some 30,832 bed days were lost in St James's Hospital, while almost 16,000 were lost up to the end of May this year.
Beaumont Hospital recorded a total of 29,589 lost bed days last year and 11,916 in the first five months of this year.
Meanwhile, St Vincent's Hospital in Donnybrook lost 16,890 bed days last year and 5,208 this year. Tallaght Hospital lost 13,928 bed days last year and 8,792 up to the end of May this year.
The smallest number of lost bed days was at St John's Hospital in Limerick where 45 days were recorded this year and 226 last year. Figures were also low for hospitals such as Letterkenny General, Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe and Longford/Westmeath Regional Hospital in Mullingar.
Mr English said the Government had broken promises to provide extra beds and was now shown to be failing to use existing beds appropriately.
"What these bed figures are showing is the impact of the Fianna Fáil Government's failure to invest taxpayers' money in essential health services while the coffers were full," the Meath West TD said.
He said the figures for the first five months of this year suggested that the final figures for 2008 would be even worse than 2007.
"The 250,000 bed days lost could have accommodated a hell of a lot of the 230 patients on trolleys each day this year, made a big difference to the 21,000 on waiting lists and helped prevent the cancellation of over 7,000 procedures so far this year," Mr English said.
"As the Government's mismanagement of health continues, things look set to be even worse next year. No doubt this will be in no small part thanks to the cutbacks in community services and home helps brought about by Brian Cowen's recession."
In response to the criticism, a HSE spokeswoman said that "significant measures" had been taken to address the issue of delayed discharge within the context of the Winter Initiative set up by the HSE two years ago.
New beds had been opened in a number of hospitals and a new community nursing unit would be opened in Galway in the coming weeks, she said. A 20-bed unit would also be opened in Mayo by the end of the year.
She said the HSE had continued to contract beds in private nursing homes, with an extra 320 beds contracted so far this year.
The spokeswoman also pointed to the National Bed Utilisation Review which was conducted last year.
"The findings of the Bed Utilisation Review are being implemented in all the hospital networks as appropriate," she said.
