Elderly used as 'scapegoats' for A&E crisis

Accident and emergency overcrowding in hospital is due to alcohol and drug abuse among young people, and not the number of older people occupying beds, the Senior Citizens' Parliament has heard.

Older people are the "scapegoats" for the A&E crisis, when alcohol and drug abusers are really to blame for clogging up beds, the president of the parliament, Peter B Sands, told delegates at its annual general meeting yesterday. "Our hospitals were intended for people with medical problems, not for people who continue to abuse both drugs and alcohol."

He said there was always a rise in the number of older people attending A&E departments in the winter, but these were still legitimately sick people. "The number of older people occupying beds is not a problem. A major factor is the abuse of alcohol and drugs."

One in four A&E attendances were due to alcohol-related illness and injury and the problem extended to the very young, with 11 children treated for alcohol poisoning in two Dublin hospitals on St Patrick's Day. Three-quarters of children suffering brain damage at the National Rehabilitation Hospital had been in alcohol-related road crashes, he said.

The parliament passed a motion calling on the Minister for Health to allocate enough resources to A&E services to eliminate the "unacceptable delays" in accommodation and treatment.

The Retired Civil and Public Servants' Association, proposing the motion, said arguments about whether the crisis was due to a lack of beds were a waste of time and the Minister should test the theory by providing the beds. "People, young or old, should not have to wait on a trolley for days. We don't need more talk or more surveys, or more task forces or reports, we need action," Anna O'Farrell of the association said.

The parliament also called for breast and prostate cancer screening to be available to everyone regardless of age. The Breast Check programme should be available in every part of the country and extended to everyone over 64. It was now accepted that cancer cells still multiplied over the age of 65, Maireád Hayes of the parliament said, and the restriction of screening to under 65s had been more a matter of expedience than of health concerns. "There should be no age discrimination when it comes to health screening."