reports in the Irish Examiner<\/a> of disagreement between clinical directors at Cork University Hospital and management in HSE South-West over how resources are allocated.<\/p>\nMs Carroll MacNeill said on Friday: \u201cI want to see the resources that we have invested in used.\u201d\u00a0 She recently opened an extension at Mallow General Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week there has been variously 29 [or] 24 [or] 23 patients on trolleys in CUH and at the same time there’s been 14 to 16 beds vacant in Mallow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
“The idea of a person from Cork lying on trolleys in CUH while there is an empty bed in Mallow is an immoral use of the tax payer’s money. It\u2019s an immoral way to care for patients in the broader community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking after an event to mark 150 years of rehabilitation services at Clontarf Hospital, she said: \u201cThe Mercy Hospital got a virtual ward with 15 beds on it as an initial investment. Over the last number of weeks, there\u2019s been no more than three patients on that virtual ward. It\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Virtual wards allow patients to finish their treatment at home, monitored by a hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Carroll McNeill said it was \u201creally challenging\u201d to understand why these were not more used. A new endoscopy unit in Bantry Hospital should also be used \u201call the time\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Gaps between acute hospitals and other facilities are \u201cnot unique to the South-West\u201d, she also said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is everybody\u2019s responsibility,\u201d the minister said, and referenced consultants as well as management, including the regional executive director and integrated healthcare area managers.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cIt\u2019s the taxpayer and the patient that matters here.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
In response HSE Southwest said: \u201cHSE South West notes the minister\u2019s comments regarding pressures at Cork University Hospital and fully acknowledges the ongoing challenges associated with high demand and patient flow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It said \u201csignificant work\u201d was under way across Cork and Kerry to expand how hospitals work together.<\/p>\n
Mallow takes \u201ctransfers and admissions\u201d from CUH, the Mercy and University Hospital Kerry as well as caring for local patients, it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeams at other Cork hospitals can and do transfer patients in order to keep beds available for those who require high dependency care,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The region will \u201ccontinue to work closely with the Department of Health and the minister to progress further measures that support sustainable improvements in patient flow and hospital capacity”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is an \u201cimmoral\u201d use of tax payers’ money to have hospital beds empty in Mallow while patients…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,4892,396,2120,61,60],"class_list":["post-520842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-news","tag-healthcare","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}