Aontú Leader Peadar Tóibín TD has demanded that the Health Minister address the number of cases where patients in hospitals across the country remain languishing in beds many months after they have been clinically discharged, with some having not left the hospital up to two years after doctors said they were fit to go home.
Speaking today, the Meath West TD said:
“In recent months we have been highlighting how patients in hospitals have been unable to leave hospital for a range of reasons such as being unable to find a suitable placement in a care home. As a result of an Aontú Parliamentary Question, we now know that 98 people are in hospital long after doctors have deemed them fit to leave, eight of these patients have been in that situation for more than a year. We sought information from the HSE on the number of people who remain in hospital but are clinically discharged for more than two months, five months, nine months, 12 months, 15 months, 18 months, 21 months and 24 months.
Shockingly, Galway has the worst record, with 8 people recorded as being still in hospital up to 4 months after their discharge, two waiting up to 8 months, 1 person waiting over a year, and one finally waiting up to 17 months following discharge. Midlands Regional Hospital Tullamore and Sligo University Hospital have one patient each that have waited up to two years after discharge. That is an abysmal situation for those patients and their families, and the Minister must identify those patients immediately, determine the reason for their being stuck in limbo and address it.
If older people have fallen between two bureaucratic stools, the HSE and the Minister must immediately intervene. The fact that 98 human beings are not where they should be, and that those beds are not available for use, is unacceptable, and represents a fundamental failure of the care pathway people expect of healthcare – healthy people do not belong in a hospital. I am demanding accountability from the Minister and the HSE on each and every one of these cases as a matter of urgency. Clinicians should be given whatever resources they need to address the current situation – and in the cases where someone remains at a hospital longer than 6 months following their clinical discharge, the HSE should undertake an investigation to identify the challenges and make urgent recommendations to ensure this situation is never again faced by a patient.”
