Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

No hospital bed should be closed because of a lack of cleanliness. Everybody is paying big money to have hospitals cleaned. I have asked the director of the National Hospitals Office to introduce a new inspection and audit approach to ensure basic cleanliness in our acute hospitals, which is not too much to expect.

I agree that many more people can be treated if hospital beds are put to better use. Dr. Conor Burke, a respiratory physician at the Mater Hospital, demonstrated in a paper he published recently that if all patients at James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown were discharged when they were medically fit to be discharged, the hospital would have no problems in its accident and emergency department. It is not a question of more beds, nurses or doctors, but of ensuring that those who are fit to go home are moved to an alternative facility. We need to ensure that happens when it should happen. We have to learn the lessons of reports of that kind, produced by experts like Dr. Burke. We need to use our acute hospital system efficiently and effectively.

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