State hospitals to get 709 extra beds this year

Public hospitals are to receive 709 new acute beds this year, the Minister for Health Mr Martin announced this afternoon.

Launching

Acute Hospital Bed Capacity - a National Review

Mr Martin said the number of acute hospital beds was now 11,832.

Mr Micheál Martin

This has resulted in Ireland having the lowest beds per head-of-population ratio in the EU. The report is a detailed national study of hospital bed requirements in the State for the ten years until 2011.

All but 35 of the 709 extra beds announced today are expected to be operational by the end of this year. Nearly 250 places are planned for the Dublin region.

Mr Martin said all the health boards were asked to nominate any extra capacity. The minister said he was confident the 800 extra staff required to open and run the beds would be found.

The Government is committed to the provision of an extra 3,000 beds under the lifetime of the health strategy launched last year at a cost of €65 million.

Today’s report estimates Irish hospitals need an 4,335 beds to meet existing and predicted demand up to 2011. Nearly 1,500 of these will be found within the hospital system due to greater efficiencies, the report said.

Delayed discharge - where a patients remains in hospital because they are waiting for a recuperation or nursing home place - needs to be improved and could release 675 beds for other use, the minister said.

Dr Mary Codd, a clinical epidemiologist who acted as a Consultant on the bed capacity report warned that the needs of an aging population like Ireland’s was a "timebomb"

In 2000 people aged over 65 years-of-age were 11 per cent of the population but made up 27 per cent of the acute hospital inpatient population. And when this age group were in hospital they required 46 per cent of resources, Dr Codd added.

Mr Martin also suggested that, in some cases, elective inpatient surgery could be substituted with day surgery, thus releasing another 200 beds. The Department of Health also intends to purchase the equivalent of 200 beds for public patients from the private sector.

Fine Gael’s health spokesperson, Mr Gay Mitchell was critical of today’s announcement which he called a ball of smoke to "bide time in an election year".

"The minister does not say where the staff will come from to treat these patients. 16,580 bed days were lost in the first half of 2001 because of nursing shortages", Mr Mitchell added.