THE NEEDS of the homeless must remain at the forefront of emergency care planning in hospitals, a consultant in Cork said yesterday after it emerged that 8 per cent of AE patients who present at hospitals in the city are homeless.
Dr Chris Luke, addressing a Cork Simon Community seminar on the health impact of homelessness in Cork, said the needs of the homeless were often complicated.
Dr Luke, a consultant in emergency medicine at Cork University Hospital and the Mercy Hospital in the city, told the seminar there was a widespread perception that hospital emergency departments in Ireland were full of people “who shouldn’t be there” because lifestyle “choices” involving alcohol or drug consumption had led to their hospitalisation.
He told the conference at the Cork School of Music he had long argued that a reduction in the number of such patients was essential if the chronic overcrowding in these departments was to be tackled.
However, Dr Luke said, the one exception to this rule were people who were homeless and for whom lifestyle “choice” was a remote notion. In many ways the homeless were the most deserving of all his patients and their needs must remain at the forefront of emergency planning.
He said the problems of homeless people who presented at A&E could be deep-rooted.
“You are starting, for example, with foetal alcohol syndrome. People with foetal alcohol syndrome growing up and becoming incapable of leading an ordinary life. They simply cannot manage in the ordinary public space the rest of us inhabit.”
Meanwhile, latest figures from the Simon Community indicate that an average of seven people sleep rough every night in Cork city, with that figure expected to rise in the coming months.
Cork Simon’s director Collette Kelleher released the findings of a health audit conducted among all 183 people using Cork Simon services during the first week of September 2009.
It showed 58 per cent had a diagnosed mental health condition, 77 per cent had both diagnosed mental and physical conditions, and 52 per cent had a diagnosed mental health condition and used alcohol and/or drugs.