Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is a serious problem in hospitals all over the country, with beds being occupied by people who are well enough to be discharged but have nowhere to go. At the heart of the problem is the time it takes to get approval for nursing home support under the fair deal scheme and the growing numbers of people waiting for approval for home help under the home support service.

The knock-on effect of this is that people on the waiting list for operations and other procedures cannot get into hospitals because there are no beds available for them. In many cases, it has taken several weeks for applications for the fair deal scheme to be approved. There are people occupying hospital beds who have recovered sufficiently to be discharged but who cannot manage on their own at home. Pending approval of their application, they are expected to pay €900 or more per week to stay in a nursing home, money that they often simply do not have, so they must be kept in hospital until approval comes through. It is not where they want to be. It is widely accepted that people need to get out of hospital as early as possible to avoid the risk of infection. There are many others who could go home if they had sufficient support in the form of home care services but, unfortunately, there are long waiting lists for home help in many areas. The most recent figure concerning the number of people awaiting approval for home help is more than 6,200. My home county of Galway has the worst record in the country with more than 670 people waiting for home help.

Thankfully, our population is living longer but that also means that the demand for home help services and nursing home care will continue to grow. Unless sufficient resources are allocated to meeting this demand, the problem of hospital beds not being freed up will also continue to grow. This in turn will lead to growing numbers of people on waiting lists for treatment waiting for beds to become available and growing numbers spending nights on trolleys in our emergency departments because they also cannot be moved to a bed in the hospital.

I acknowledge that some progress has been made this year regarding the number of people on waiting lists for inpatient or day case treatment. However, more than 72,000 people were on waiting lists for inpatient and day care treatment at the beginning of this month, almost 12,000 of which had been waiting a year or more. Galway University Hospital has the highest number of any hospital at almost 9,400. The same limited progress is not evident in respect of outpatient waiting list, which currently stands at more than 516,000 people. The total went over the half million mark for the first time at the end of last year and has remained above that extraordinary level every month of this year. Again, Galway has the highest number of people awaiting outpatient treatment at just under 40,000.

What further measures does the Government propose to take to ensure that people are released from hospital more quickly into the proper care they need and to ease the worry, stress and even physical risk to vulnerable members of our society?

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