Nurses blame consultants on beds crisis

The number of patients on hospital trolleys is creeping nearer the 500 mark, with the latest "trolley watch" figure showing there were 475 patients on trolleys this morning.

As the beds crisis appears to worsen, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has claimed hospital consultants could do more to reduce pressure on beds.

The INMO claimed one of the factors in ED overcrowding is the continued practice of some hospital consultants, which sees them ignore the implications of A&E overcrowding as they continue to protect their own areas of work and refuse to recognise the requirement that they must reduce activity.

The nurses' union denied a claim by an emergency department consultant in Limerick that overcrowding in wards is an industrial relations stance adopted by the INMO.

The INMO said consultants should improve their patient management systems and discharge patients earlier.

Today's trolley number is the highest figure recorded this year. The INMO, which compiles the trolley stats, has pointed out that the trolley numbers are now nearing the 496 recorded in March 2006,

At that time, Health Minister Mary Harney declared it an emergency situation, and an action plan to deal with the  emergency department crisis was initiated.

Today's figures show there were 49 people waiting on trolleys in Cork University Hospital and 34 at St Vincent's in Dublin.

There were 30 patients on trolleys in Limerick Regional Hospital, where there has been major overcrowding problems in recent days.

The INMO, in a statement, said in 2007 there were 50,402 people on trolleys and in 2009 there were 60,327, which is an increase of 20%.
 

It said regularly, in recent weeks, there were frequently in excess of 400 people on trolleys nationwide.

According to INMO General Secretary Liam Doran, what is required now is a system-wide recognition that ED overcrowding is a symptom of a health service that is failing to recognise the limitations that the absence of required resources presents.

"ED consultants should collectively require their in-patient consultant colleagues to dramatically change their work practices, increase their ward rounds, reduce their elective admissions and improve their patient discharge system, immediately, in the face of the reality facing the hospitals in which they work."

It said other factors in ED and hospital overcrowding included the HSE's policy to reduce bed numbers without providing enough alternative facilities in primary and community care, and the failure of hospital managers to manage available resources.

The INMO also slammed the "abject failure" of Health Minister Mary Harney, despite her declaration of a national emergency in March 2006, to have her Department assist, in any way, in resolving ED overcrowding through the introduction of appropriate policies, required resources and targeted initiatives.

[Posted: Tue 19/01/2010]