MORE THAN 40 per cent of all patients in hospital accident and emergency departments who required admission had to wait longer than the official maximum period of 12 hours for a bed, according to a new report given to the board of the Health Service Executive (HSE) last Thursday.
The report said that during the first four months of the year there were 6,159 occurrences where patients in accident and emergency departments had to wait longer than 12 hours for a bed after the decision to admit had been taken.
“This represents 41 per cent of all patient admission waits during this year so far,” the report states.
It said that for the same period in 2007, the number of patients who had to wait for longer than 12 hours in emergency departments for admission was 4,799.
The HSE board was also informed in the report that the number of instances where patients had to wait over 24 hours in emergency departments for admission has also increased significantly, from 786 in 2007 to 1,185 this year.
The report said that based on a census taken at 2pm in hospitals each day, the number of persons awaiting admission – following a decision to admit – rose from a monthly average of 3,120 in April 2007 to more than 3,690 in April 2008.
However, the report said that while the numbers awaiting admission in emergency departments were significantly higher in January and February, the numbers dropped slightly below the 2007 levels in April.
“The HSE’s winter initiative group continues to tackle the issue of admission waits in conjunction with its local implementation teams at network level.
“The pattern of admission waits appears to be that hospitals with little or no admission waits continue to experience the same pattern but major centres with large numbers of admission waits have experienced increased numbers awaiting admission,” it said.
“It should also be noted that during April/May period in 2007, the nursing dispute was causing many patients to avoid attending hospitals. Therefore, activity for the same period in 2008 appears higher compared to the same period last year,” it said.
The report also stated that the number of presentations in hospital accident and emergency departments showed a 5 per cent increase over the same period in 2007, with nearly 400,000 presentations to date nationally.
“Many hospitals have experienced sharp increases in levels of presentations this year compared to last – for example all southeastern hospitals group,” the report stated.
The report also said that while showing nearly a 2 per cent increase against 2008 targets compared with 2007, emergency admissions were slightly down by almost 1 per cent.
“This could be due to a variety of factors, including the number of delayed discharges occupying, in some cases, up to 17 per cent of seven-day in-patient beds available in a hospital,” it said.
“Hospitals such as the South Tipperary, Wexford, Mater, Ennis, Mullingar, Portlaoise, and Tullamore have seen significant increases in the number of patients requiring emergency admissions.
“Many of these hospitals have also experienced significant increases in emergency presentations,” it said.
