PRESS RELEASE- OVERCROWDING IN WEXFORD'S A & E UNTENABLE

Dr. Liam Twomey of Fine Gael has said that the situation in Wexford General Hospital is untenable with 26 people on trolleys in A & E, last week. “Since 2007, 19 beds have been closed in the hospital. When the Minister and the HSE make decisions to close wards in their Dublin offices, they just look at the statistics and not the people.”
He added that the patients on trolleys are suffering. When he has to send a patient to the hospital, the fact that the patient will be on a trolley is a serious consideration for him. He said that not only is it extremely difficult for the nurses to provide the nursing care that is needed, the patients are not being given the basic rights of dignity and privacy that all patients should be entitled to. It is also difficult for patients to sleep with constant movement of staff up and down the corridor. “If the closed St. Catherine’s’ Ward could be re-opened to allow patients to use the facilities in the Ward, patients would be more comfortable. Importantly, reducing the number of patients treated on trolleys decreases complications.”
Dr. Twomey believes that it is ridiculous that even during the “Tiger Economy” years we had these same overcrowding problems and the recession, with the Government’s cut in funds to Health, has resulted in a worsening of the situation. Rather than always going for the easy option of simply cutting patient beds and services, the Government should look at the actual savings that these measures make. In the US, it was shown that reducing the number of patients treated on trolleys resulted in a decrease in the overall length of stay for all patients – a real cost saving.
With over 500 patients nationwide on trolleys, Fine Gael has urged the government to urgently instruct the HSE to start contracting some of the 1,800 unoccupied nursing home beds to properly accommodate those people in acute hospital beds who need long stay care, among other measures. Dr. Twomey said that Fine Gael’s Fair Care health policy would result in a “money-follows-the-patient” budgeting system so that hospitals are paid for how many patients they treat. Patients will no longer be seen as “costs” to the health service, but as sources of “income”.