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THE HSE WERE warned that delayed discharges were putting lives at risk last September, according to RTE’s Prime Time.
The then-National Director for Acute Hospitals Dr Tony O’Connell says he wrote an analysis of the problem almost six months ago.
Dr O’Connell left his job suddenly in January after just eight months in one of the HSE’s most senior posts.
He believes that people are dying because of blockages in the system. At the time he wrote the analysis, there were 703 delayed discharge patients in the acute hospital system.
Last week, there were even more – 755 – delayed discharge patients in the system.
The family of an elderly man who was one such patient said,
I heard him ask a nurse if he could be washed and she said ‘There are 10 others in front of you’.
“It was sad to see him just stare into space because there was nothing else to do.”
Dr O’Connell revealed there were actually ‘a handful of patients who live permanently in our acute beds, in that they have been waiting over three years for placement’.
Waiting to draw funds
Many of the delayed discharge patients are elderly patients who have been approved for funding for private nursing home care under the Fair Deal scheme but who are waiting to draw down the funds.
There are currently 1,239 people waiting 11 weeks for their Fair Deal funding.
The Department of Health has provided an extra €10 million to the Fair Deal Scheme since Christmas – 500 transitional care beds were funded in private nursing homes in January and a further 400 beds have been funded in February.
A review of the Fair Deal Scheme will shortly be submitted to the Minister of State with responsibility for Primary and Social Care Kathleen Lynch and to the Minister for Health Leo Varadker.
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This will be one walk the orangemen won’t be doing .
@Finn Bowe: some of then well be protesting though. Happens every year
They could start with teaching a few heads up at Stormont a little bit about the subject
Imagine the North used to policed by the RUC.
How times have changed.
Well done Psni. Maith na buachaillí.
The PSNI has been one of the great successes of the peace process. If Brexit does lead to a united Ireland we should extend it to a 32 county organisation to replace our own discredited force.
No wonder they want a hard border !!!
Well done PSNI, fantastic step forward for equality
When we get hate speech laws here…Journal will be boring…Many comments won’t be allowed….
@John003: Hate speech it seems only emanates from non-lefty liberals. Bit like discrimination which apparently is also only committed by whites! As to Pride, well they say that only comes before the fall? These Pride gigs are grand in themselves for a bit of fun if it were not for the fact that they are really a sad vehicle to prolong the “victim syndrome” of a lot of the so called LGBT, MGBGT community!
@Warthog: they are being victimised all over the world and until there is 100% equality everywhere, these marches and other LGBT need to continue. So keep up your own bigoted attitude and these events will continue.
@Warthog: So many of the LGBT community were victims of ‘gay bashings’, which happens in this day and age, so they have every right to have the victim status, and angry after 50 years of fighting for equal rights, also being fired from the workplace was another practice if the employer found out if an individual was gay, lesbian or transgender. and police forces of any nation used to beat of kill the LGBT community often, so don’t preach this crap please.
@Paul Furey: Hahaha that’s funny. See the truth hurts, as those with half a brain would understand that I was making a valid observation and no way was I being bigoted. But of course as I was not fully on-board with your agenda you revert to type and start the usual name childish name calling! As to been victimized, maybe you and the rest of the LGBT/MGBGTs should grow a pair and start protesting against Islamic countries that go way beyond victimizing and do in fact lop the heads off or throw LGBTs off high rise buildings.
@Warthog: Pride is about protesting about all bigotry including that which happens in Islamic countries. Surely that’s obvious?
So, An Garda Síochána, your move.
@Tomboktu: A move they made several years ago
They should start with allowing marriage, too.
Good on you PSNI go for it
I would not go rushing to heap praise here when in reality it’s still illegal to have any form of homosexual conduct between consenting adults in private. The notion of same sex “marriage” is ages away and while it took Paisley and his fellow travellers over 40 years to get the message over the peace process it will take the current Unionists forever to come round to the idea. This reactionary outlook has not stopped the DUP being handed wads of cash under the guise of adhering to the peace process but in reality they are just propping up the current Tory Government which is so tawdry it is not insisting on change in such areas as a quid pro quo for the money
Is the border a hate crime? I think it is.
have your say