Hospitals lose thousands of bed days over delays

Galway’s three public hospitals are filled with treated patients who do not need to be in hospital any longer.

New damning figures reveal that thousands of bed days were lost at University Hospital Galway, Merlin Park and Portiuncula in Ballinasloe because of delays in discharging patients.

Galway University Hospitals (UHG and Merlin Park) lost a whopping 3,859 bed days in the first six months of this year alone because of delayed discharges. Another 597 bed days were lost between January and June at Portiuncula due to delayed discharges.

This in turn is contributing to overcrowding on wards and patients being left on trolleys in the corridors of the Emergency Department.

The official Health Service Executive figures were released to Fianna Fáil, following a parliamentary question to the Minister for Health, Simon Harris.

Nationally, there were more than 91,000 delayed discharges at hospitals across the country, with the major Dublin hospitals in particular guilty of wasting beds.

Grace Rothwell of the HSE’s acute hospital division said a patient is classified as a delayed discharge “when they no longer need to be in an acute hospital setting but have no access to appropriate step-down care”.

Galway East TD, Anne Rabbitte has slammed the loss of bed days as “unjustifiable”.

The Fianna Fáil TD said the chronic overcrowding at hospitals such as UHG cannot be solved until the problem of delayed discharges is tackled by the HSE and Government.

She said there was a lack of step-down beds or home supports in place to allow patients to be discharged from hospital and be where they want to be: at home or cared for in the community.

“From both a resource and patient care point of view, these lost bed days are unjustifiable, and it is further evidence that the level of support being provided to older patients is not good enough.

“We know that across the State, there are too few step-down beds in the health system and that home supports remain inadequate. The excessive and unforgivable situation where hundreds of patients are lying on trolleys in Emergency Departments or in wards is directly related to the number of bed days lost in the system,” said Deputy Rabbitte.

The bed days lost to delayed discharges at UHG and Merlin Park included: 637 in January, 578 in February, 687 in March, 687 in April, 636 in May, and 634 in June. The bed days lost to delayed discharges in Ballinasloe included: 56 in January, 115 in February, 155 in March, 170 in April, 65 in May and 36 in June. There were a further 1,815 bed days lost to delayed discharges at Mayo University Hospital and some 977 bed days lost at Roscommon University Hospital.

The Portumna based politician believes the resources spent on delayed discharges should be redirected to home care packages, which would be more efficient and ease pressure on a local hospital system that is at capacity.

“If a fraction of these lost days were put back into use every day through better supports for older people upon discharge, we could radically reduce the number of people lying on trolleys. My instinct is that the amount being spent on keeping these patients in hospital is a lot more than the cost of providing decent, quality home care packages or care in a step-down care facility.

“The HSE must accept that utilising our community hospital facilities to support and care for non-acute patients is the way to go. By removing them from acute hospitals, we can ensure that more beds are available for people attending Emergency Departments, as well as for those on waiting lists for in-patient procedures,” added Deputy Rabbitte.