EDITORIAL: No quick fix to overcrowding problem in country's public hospitals

A FLU epidemic and the unwelcome return of Covid has plunged the health service in this country into an unprecedented crisis.

Harrowing stories of elderly and vulnerable patients waiting for days on trolleys in hospital corridors for beds have dominated the news cycle.

While in January every year there are problems with overcrowding in hospitals this year has seen the crisis escalate beyond people's worst fears.

Overall the Health Service Executive figures reveal there were 390 patients on trolleys in acute hospitals around the country on Monday and 138 of those had been waiting over nine hours.

This represents a 31.31 per cent increase in trolley waiters versus last year.

Despite the ongoing overcrowding crisis in hospitals around the country and soaring trolley figures being reported again this week, the INMO (Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation) has revealed there were no people on trolleys in the emergency department or in wards at the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore on either Monday or Tuesday of this week.

Every morning at 8am, INMO members count how many patients are waiting in the Emergency Department for a bed and how many are waiting in wards elsewhere in the hospital.

They count the number of patients who have been admitted to acute hospitals, but who are waiting for a free bed. These patients are often being treated on trolleys in corridors, but they may also be on chairs, in waiting rooms, or simply wherever there’s space.

Elsewhere in the Midlands the INMO reported there were 12 patients on trolleys at Mullingar hospital on Tuesday while Portlaoise hospital had four.

The Health Service Executive's own trolley figures which are recorded three times a day concur with the INMO figures.

In addition its figures revealed there were ten people with Covid symptoms at Tullamore hospital on Tuesday morning of this week. Portlaoise had five and Mullingar had nine patients with Covid symptoms.

It is hard to see any solution to the overcrowding problem which is a very complex issue.

The simple answer would be provide more hospital beds but this is no long term solution.

Certainly the number of hospital beds has decreased in the past decade, a period in which the population has increased by over half a million and the number of over 65s has mushroomed.

On Tuesday the HSE admitted that 858 beds have been closed or are otherwise currently unavailable across the hospital network.

Of this figure, 554 beds cannot be used due to the need for infection prevention and control, 120 are closed due to staffing issues and a further 113 due to Covid-19.

The Government has urged the HSE to transfer as many patients as possible from hospitals to private nursing homes where there are hundreds of beds available.

The overcrowding crisis must be treated as a national emergency as hospitals will undoubtedly be under significant pressure for the foreseeable future due to flu, other infections and Covid-19.

Ireland's health service faces a myriad of problems of which the overcrowding crisis is just the latest.

Reforming the system will take a great deal of courage on the part of the Government, the HSE and the Department of Health.

It will require joined up thinking and a large amount of idealism to realise the ultimate aim of a public health service where all patients are treated equally.

The overcrowding crisis comes hot on the heels of the closure of the out of hours GP Midoc service, which served Offaly, Laois., Longford and parts of Westmeath, at the end of last year.

But, in welcome news, the HSE has reassured service users and patients that arrangements have been put in place between the HSE and local GP’s which will ensure continuity of care.