Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has criticised the Health\nService Executive (HSE) and the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, for their\nfailure to tackle delayed discharges in hospitals, as inept and lacking in\noversight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The delays have cost the health service, and by extension\nIrish taxpayers, nearly \u20ac600 million since 2016. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD described\nMinister Harris and HSE as the real bed blockers, not the poor patient who is\nforced to overstay because of the government\u2019s disastrous policies and a lack\nof supports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDelayed discharge patients are clinically fit for discharge from an acute bed, but because of a lack of home help or a nursing home bed they can’t be discharged. This practice constitutes one of the biggest financial wastes in the health service and has cost the health service nearly \u20ac600 million since 2016.<\/p>
\u201cHundreds of millions of Irish tax payers money is being wasted unnecessarily by keeping these patients in an acute hospital bed setting. This overspend highlights Minister Harris\u2019 ineptitude when it comes to tax payers hard earned money.<\/p>
\u201cDelayed discharges also keep sick patients out of beds and further delays care. This is a contributory factor to Emergency Department overcrowding, it adversely affects patient flow throughout the hospital, and it is incredibly unfair on the patients who are ready to be discharged.<\/p>
\u201cSince the start of this year an incredible 6,152 bed days have been lost in Tallaght University Hospital due to delayed discharges. It costs the health service \u20ac878 to run a hospital bed per day, so it has cost Tallaght University Hospital \u20ac5,401,456 to date in 2019 just to unnecessarily keep patients who can be discharged in hospital beds.<\/p>
\u201cThis has been going on for years. Last year, when the cost of a hospital bed per day was \u20ac856 per day, 13,887 bed days were lost in Tallaght University Hospital, meaning that it cost the hospital \u20ac11,887,272.<\/p>
\u201cThis approach highlights ineptness, and a lack of oversight and forward planning. The fault lies squarely with Minister Harris and senior executives at the HSE.<\/p>
\u201cTheir policy of cutting home help supports denies patients a discharge with home help or step-down supports. This is upsetting and frustrating for families and patients who are then described by that awful term, bed blockers. <\/p>
\u201cMinister Harris and HSE are the real bed blockers, not the poor patient who is forced to overstay because of the government\u2019s disastrous policies and a lack of supports.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has criticised the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, for their failure to tackle delayed discharges in hospitals, as inept and lacking in oversight. The delays have cost the health service, and by extension Irish taxpayers, nearly \u20ac600 million since 2016. The Sinn F\u00e9in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,166,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-hse","category-tallaght-hospital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3900,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions\/3900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}