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Consultants call for increase in hospital bed capacity

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association has warned that waiting lists will continue to grow amid the coronavirus response.

SENIOR DOCTORS HAVE called for an urgent increase in hospital beds to help clear the treatment backlog caused by coronavirus.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said plans set out two years ago to boost capacity needed to be implemented without further delay.

The 2018 National Development Plan (NDP) and Capacity Review proposed an additional 2,600 acute hospital beds and 4,500 community care beds across the health service.

The IHCA said almost 800,000 people were now on some form of National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) waiting list – up almost 34,000 on the same time last year.

The representative body said around 570,000 outpatients were waiting to be seen by a consultant – an increase of more than 15,000 on 2019.

And it said more than 86,000 were waiting on inpatient/day case treatments – a number than has increased by almost 20,000 since the start of the year.

2.53693726 HSE CEO Paul Reid has said private hospitals will be used to clear the non-coronavirus treatment backlog built up during the emergency.

Dr Donal O’Hanlon, president of the IHCA, said the impact of the Covid-19 response had seen all non-urgent care postponed. He said this was only beginning to restart for some health conditions.

“The confirmation from the NTPF that there are now almost 800,000 people waiting for care across our public acute hospitals should prompt greater urgency from Government, the Department of Health and the HSE,” he said.

“These numbers will grow further over the coming months as the impact of current delays in providing care to non-Covid patients of private and public hospitals and the cancellation of surgeries during Covid-19 crisis takes effect.

“The solutions to issues, such as waiting lists, which our health service continues to grapple with, have already been recommended but remain to be implemented.

“These include the 2018 National Development Plan and Capacity Review recommendations to put in place an additional 2,600 acute hospital beds and 4,500 community care beds.

“Increased acute hospital beds are necessary to not only increase capacity but to facilitate patient isolation and to underpin physical distancing in our public hospitals.

“Now more than ever, these beds need to be funded and put in place without delay. Workable solutions, such as these, if prioritised, can save lives and deliver necessary timely care to patients.”

Tweet by @HSE Ireland HSE Ireland / Twitter HSE Ireland / Twitter / Twitter

Earlier this week, HSE chief executive Paul Reid said private hospitals would be used to help clear some of the NTPF lists as part of coronavirus link-up between the public and private healthcare sectors.

Dr O’Hanlon also said the Government could no longer “ignore” the need to recruit more consultants to fill an rising number of vacated posts.

“This stood at about 500 before the commencement of the Covid-19 crisis and will have increased further in the interim,” he said.

“As we continue to tackle the current challenges brought to our already strained health service by Covid-19, we need to urgently implement the recommendations in the 2018 Capacity Review and the NDP which have unfortunately been neglected by the Government over the past two years.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the HSE had to take measures to defer all non-urgent elective scheduled care activity, including outpatient clinics.

“This was to ensure patient safety and that all appropriate resources were made available for Covid-19-related activity and time-critical essential work.

“This decision was in line with the advice issued by the World Health Organisation, and the National Action Plan published on March 16.

“The NPHET (National Public Health Emergency Team) has now recommended that steps be taken to resume non-urgent scheduled care in the context of the safe care guidelines set out by its Expert Advisory Group.

“The Department of Health continues to work with the HSE and NTPF to monitor elective care, to measure the impact of Covid-19 on scheduled care, and to work on the resumption of scheduled care in a safe environment.”

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    Mute Seriousnojoke
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    May 16th 2020, 4:01 PM

    I wanted to get a checkup and was told the waiting list was three months long. That was summer 2018.

    Reform needs to be done about our health system. Not just for Covid-19 but in general overall.

    125
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    Mute Mairead Jenkins
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    May 16th 2020, 3:52 PM

    And to be added to the existing public waiting lists are all the people ( and half the population has private health insurance) who had private procedures and appointments cancelled since March. The waiting lists are just getting longer and longer and longer….

    110
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    Mute Jun Stone
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    May 16th 2020, 5:00 PM

    @Mairead Jenkins: exactly I work in a private hospital and no elective procedures or clinics have been happening as everyone is now a public patient, just adding to the already enormous public hospital waiting lists…madness!

    79
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    Mute Jun Stone
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    May 16th 2020, 5:03 PM

    @Mairead Jenkins: exactly I work in a private hospital and no elective procedures or clinics have been happening as everyone is now a public patient going through the public hospitals just adding to the already enormous public hospital waiting lists…madness!

    15
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    Mute Andrew Barber
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    May 16th 2020, 3:50 PM

    Not so easy to say more beds. Beds require Doctors, Nurses, Allied Health Professions, Porters, Cleaners, Nursing assistants etc.

    75
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    Mute Sam Harms
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    May 16th 2020, 3:59 PM

    @Andrew Barber: alot of doctors are having the quietest time they have ever had in work because there are no patients for them to treat

    109
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    Mute Alan Biddulph
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    May 16th 2020, 4:25 PM

    @Sam Harms: no sports injuries, drink fuelled fights, or car accidents etc. Also the hypochondriacs have taken the last 8 weeks off. Things will be back to normal soon I’m sure.

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    Mute Wayne Connor
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    May 16th 2020, 4:48 PM

    @Sam Harms: as we are currently 3 months into a projected 2 – 3 years of this horrific pandemic, it’s short sighted thinking like yours that’s going to get us all in trouble. Shame on you

    7
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    Mute Sam Harms
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    May 16th 2020, 5:29 PM

    @Wayne Connor: what short sighted thinking? I know doctors who are going to work and doing nothing all day when they could be seeing patients who have been on waiting lists for months or years

    35
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    Mute Ann Illing
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    May 16th 2020, 4:17 PM

    What about using all the private hospital beds that’s costing the country 115 million a month…

    63
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    Mute Mairead Jenkins
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    May 16th 2020, 5:11 PM

    @Ann Illing: The problem there might be that the private hospital deal didn’t include 100s of consultants. Might be better to scrap it as soon as possible as go back to Treatment Purchase Fund system, with all the docs working.

    28
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    Mute itzme
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    May 16th 2020, 4:03 PM

    Mehole, Leo, both ex ministers of health want to lead the country. They should hang their heads in shame.

    73
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    Mute JAC
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    May 16th 2020, 8:21 PM

    Lots of private consultants phoning patients from their private rooms. My mother charged €140 for a 3 minute phone call. She d already phoned her consultant to cancel the appointment 2 weeks earlier. I find it difficult to muster up any sympathy for them.

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    Mute Sean Carroll
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    May 16th 2020, 8:28 PM

    Better to be wrong for the right reasons than wrong for the wrong reasons. In March, we were rightly looking at the worse case scenario so HSE takeover of private hospitals was reasonable. Now is the time to reverse that decision and allow covid responsible activity to resume.

    16
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    Mute Jun Stone
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    May 17th 2020, 6:55 AM

    @Sean Carroll: exactly, we had to prepare for the surge that thankfully didn’t happen, we now need to ease up a little on that and monitor the situation as we go along.

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    Mute Busy mum
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    May 16th 2020, 7:17 PM

    Certain private hospitals NOT taking is turned or picking and choosing. We are paying much to much for this

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    Mute SMS
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    May 17th 2020, 2:12 AM

    The electorate voted them out because of their failures in health and housing. They still want to continue without doing what is needed in health. We have less than 1/2 the EU average per capita soif ICU beds. They were warned in 2017 of the dangers- they still haven’t fixed it

    6
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    Mute Pauline Fedigan
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    May 17th 2020, 7:45 AM

    THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE A BOY DOING A MAN’S JOB

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    Mute Eugene Comaskey
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    May 17th 2020, 10:04 AM

    It is time that THEY started to listen to The Senior Consultants in this Country , these are the Men and Women that actually Know what is going on and What is needed. Ordinary Sick People are now being neglected because far too much heed is being paid to Holohan and his gang that are holding the whole place to ransom. These Consultants are the Real EXPERTS , they are the People that keep people alive .

    2
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