OUTBREAKS OF winter vomiting bug and an increased volume of patients attending hospitals due to seasonal factors were being blamed yesterday by the HSE for long waiting times at several hospital emergency departments.
The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) claimed there were more than 400 patients on trolleys in hospital emergency departments across the State early yesterday, with 55 on trolleys at Dublin's Beaumont Hospital alone.
A spokesman for Beaumont said there were 36 patients on trolleys and another 10 in its admissions lounge waiting to be transferred to wards yesterday afternoon. He confirmed that some elective surgery had to be cancelled as a result of increased pressure on the hospital's emergency department.
When asked whether the influx of patients was due to an increased numbers of flu cases, he said patients awaiting admission were present for a range of reasons, not just flu.
The HSE said it recorded 225 people awaiting treatment in hospital emergency departments at 2pm yesterday. It said there were problems at a small number of hospitals, and contributing factors included outbreaks of winter vomiting bug in Dublin, the northeast, southeast and southwest, which have reduced the number of beds available for admissions.
It said other factors included the increased volume and level of illness of patients attending hospitals as a result of seasonal factors, and an increase in admissions of older people with respiratory illnesses requiring isolation, which also lowers the number of beds available for admissions.
Another factor in the logjam at several emergency departments is that hundreds of beds which patients could otherwise be transferred to are blocked by patients ready for discharge but whose discharges have been delayed for a variety of reasons. Some are awaiting nursing home beds and homecare supports.
The HSE confirmed 669 beds were still blocked by delayed discharge patients nationwide, though it stressed this was an improvement on the situation in November when delayed discharges stood at 756.
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman in the Seanad, Frances Fitzgerald, expressed serious concern at the number of patients on trolleys, which she said was the highest January trolley figure in the last two years.
She said AE overcrowding coupled with rising flu cases and the winter vomiting bug highlighted the vulnerability of the hospital system under Minister for Health Mary Harney. "Things are undoubtedly getting worse," she said.
The national Health Protection Surveillance Centre, which before Christmas noted a significant rise in the number of patients presenting to GPs with flu-like illness, will issue another update today.