Cash won’t cure waiting list at UHG, say nurses

The Government has misdiagnosed the causes of overcrowding in Galway’s emergency departments and so its prescribed medicine will not cure it, nurses claim.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has announced a €74 million package of measures to tackle overcrowding in emergency departments across the county.

Some €44 million will be used to reduce waiting times on the Fair Deal scheme, providing 1,600 extra nursing home places.

In addition, €30 million has been allocated to provide temporary beds to tackle the problem of ‘delayed discharges’ from hospitals.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has been told that of the 173 new beds promised nationally, some 35 are for Galway.

That includes 25 new short-stay, non-acute, step-down beds promised for Ballinasloe. A further ten new beds will be set aside at Merlin Park.

Meanwhile, separately, as a result of recent INMO industrial action, UHG has agreed to hire more nursing staff for the Emergency Department.

Recruitment is underway for additional nurses, which would see the day complement of staff in UHG’s ED rise from ten currently to 14; and from seven nurses at night to 10.

Clare Treacy, industrial relations officer with INMO, says the additional beds are welcome but will not solve the crisis. Extra nurses to staff ED is also welcome but the problem of a lack of capacity remains, she said.

According to Varadkar, the extra short-stay beds will facilitate more rapid discharges from UHG and Portiuncula but INMO says delayed discharges are a Dublin problem, not a West of Ireland problem.  The cure of additional short-stay beds is a result of a misdiagnosis of the problem.

The problem of overcrowding in EDs in Dublin hospitals, according to Ms Treacy, is ‘delayed discharges’. This means there aren’t enough short-stay beds to allow patients to be released from hospital into step-down beds, clogging up the system.

But in Galway, and the West of Ireland, there is adequate capacity, compared with the “distinct lack of beds in Dublin which causes delayed discharges”.

“The problem here is one of capacity and staffing. There isn’t enough capacity in the Emergency Department in Galway or Portiuncula. And there aren’t enough acute beds in the hospitals Galway or Ballinasloe.

“There is a need for more Emergency Department capacity and there is a need for more acute care capacity in both Galway and Ballinasloe. More beds for delayed discharges is not going to solve the problem of overcrowding in Ballinasloe and Galway.”

Attracting nurses to staff the new 35 short-stay beds poses a problem, too.

“There are serious difficulties in recruiting new staff, and particularly nurses, to staff the beds. There are no extra nurses in Ireland, they’re overseas it is difficult to attract nursing staff home,” she said.