Hospital overcrowding is leading to 'avoidable deaths', says IMO president

The continuing pressures of hospital overcrowding and staff shortages is causing avoidable deaths in Irish hospitals, according to the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) president Dr John Cannon. 

Speaking on Morning Ireland, he said: "I think everyone realises that it's inappropriate to be taking care of acutely ill patients in hallways and on trolleys and in inappropriate settings. 

"Every medical body in the world will say that, when you run your hospital at over-capacity, and we don't have spaces to care for patients, you will inevitably have poor outcomes and unfortunately in extreme circumstances some of those poor outcomes include fatalities... I don't think that's a surprising or shocking thing to say," Dr Cannon said. 

He said acute hospitals have been running in this fashion for a number of years now and a "generational level of investment" is now needed. 

While Ireland has some of the best emergency departments in the world, Dr Cannon said: "I think they do an exceptional job in very difficult circumstances. The issue and the blame doesn't lie at the foot of emergency departments. It's the ability for those patients, once they are triaged and treated, to be moved into an appropriate care setting and on to appropriate wards. That's where the issue comes". 

He said it is hard to quantify, but it would be naive to say there weren't unavoidable fatalities in the system already, from the level of overcrowding in our hospitals. 

He noted that the OECD has been tracking hospital bed capacity in Europe and the average capacity in Europe is 4.7 beds per 1,000 people. Ireland has just 2.9 beds per 1,000. 

Ireland's occupancy rate of those beds is around 90% while the EU average is around 75%. The safe occupancy rate is about 85%, Dr Cannon said. 

He said there are difficulties for GP services, with waiting times of between two to three weeks for an appointment. 

"We are investing, but it's not enough to keep up with the growth of the population or the growth of demand for health service. So, the first thing we need is we need a generational level of investment.

"We need to fast-track new beds being brought online and I would say that we need somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 new beds," Dr Cannon said. 

He said they need an investment in appropriate nursing and medical staff, and "modular capacity at sites which are struggling for physical space". 

These are "fast, permanent, modular builds", Dr Cannon said. 

Members of the IMO will meet in Killarney for the annual general meeting today (Thursday), with Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly due to address the conference on Saturday.