Tallaght Councillor, Charlie O’Connor, has called for action from HSE on pressures at the Emergency Department of Tallaght University Hospital which has been the subject of calls to him from concerned facilities. Charlie O’Connor raised the matter at the September meeting of the Regional Health Forum – Dublin Mid Leinster and stressed the concerns of the community in the matter.
His business on the matter was dealt with by Trevor O’Callaghan, CEO of Dublin Midlands Group, who answered as follows “Tallaght Hospital ED has experienced pressures over the last three months although not as challenging as during the Winter period. The challenge for TUH remains the number of patients presenting and the capacity available to the Hospital, there is a clear underlying requirement to develop additional onsite bed capacity. The challenge of egress for patient discharge is more acute at the moment with delays in patient discharges due to the availability of nursing home beds and home care packages. Accessing isolation beds is also an issue for the Hospital and can impact patient flow. Implementing a plan that sees the Hospital delivering new inpatient beds is vital to improving access and quality of care and is with the HSE for consideration. In addition, we continue to work closely with our HSE community colleagues to expand the services available associated with the Enhanced Community Care hubs, with a specific focus on Respiratory, Cardiology, Diabetes and older persons.”
According to Charlie O’Connor everything possible must be done to deal with the pressures at our Emergency Department and he will continue to raise the matter with HSE Management. At the meeting, Charlie O’Connor also called for the attendance at a future meeting of Stephen Donnelly TD, Minister for Health, so that he could hear first hand his concerns and those of members.
