Community bed crisis having a serious impact on Cork hospitals 

Serious concerns have been voiced about the impact a lack of available community beds is having on Cork hospitals.

Colm Porter, assistant director of industrial relations at the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, has warned that the lack of community beds in the county is adding to pressures being experienced at hospitals.

“We have particular issues in Cork with a lack of community beds,” he said, outlining that Cork University Hospital had one of the highest levels of delayed transfer of care in the country, whereby people are ready to be discharged, but there are no suitable beds for them.

HSE figures

HSE figures on delayed discharges show that there were 38 people in CUH ready to be discharged yesterday morning, but with nowhere to go.

There were 13 people ready to be discharged in the Mercy University Hospital, six in Bantry General Hospital, and another two in the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital.

Tadhg Daly, chief executive at Nursing Homes Ireland, has also previously raised concerns about the impact of the lack of community beds.

A report published earlier this month by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ERSI) showed that a large number of nursing home beds have closed in Cork since the beginning of the covid pandemic.

The Long-Term Residential Care in Ireland: Developments Since the Onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic Report showed that Cork witnessed the largest reduction in beds within public long-term residential care (LRTC) facilities out of any county, with 156 public beds lost.

The report also looked at additional planned LTRC beds that had been or are due to come on stream in 2023 and 2024, and showed that Cork will get the second-largest number of new beds, behind Dublin.

It says 326 beds will become available in Cork in 2023/34, 165 of which will be public and 171 of which will be private.

Despite these new beds leading to an increase in voluntary/private beds in Cork, huge losses of public facilities meant that Cork still ended up with the third-highest loss of beds when public and private were combined, losing 57 beds overall, just behind just Galway and Roscommon.

Ageing Cork population

Tadhg Daly told The Echo: “There is an ageing population in Cork, and with the reduced provision of nursing home beds, there is now extreme pressure on CUH.

“There will be no new bed capacity provided once the small number that are already under construction and prefunded are completed.”

In response to a query from The Echo, Cork Kerry Community Healthcare said that “a major building and refurbishment campaign is under way” across its 24 Community Nursing Facilities in Cork and Kerry.

This campaign includes extensions to existing units (including new beds), refurbishments to improve existing facilities and the construction of some new facilities.

Many of the community nursing hospitals and units located in older buildings, the spokesperson pointed out, are very much “of their time” and are no longer suitable for modern requirements.

Older buildings

“Refurbishment works at these older units in particular will ultimately lead to a better standard of life for our residents,” said the spokesperson.

“They will allow us to move away from multi-occupancy wards, as well as supporting residents’ privacy and dignity and supporting physical distancing of residents in order to reduce the risk of transmission of infection.

“The investment and building programme will also enable us to comply with legal requirements on the space and facilities offered to residents.”

Across Cork, around 60 beds have been closed at different points in order to allow the works to go ahead. Locations where beds have reopened or more beds have been provided or will be provided this year include Clonakilty, Kinsale, Macroom, Millstreet, Kanturk, and Fermoy.

“In addition, some of the 60 new beds at Heather House in Gurranbraher are now in use, with others opening on a phased basis,” the spokesperson stated.

“Work also continues on new community nursing units at St Finbarr’s Health Campus in Cork city (105 beds), and in Midleton (50) — these will replace existing beds in buildings which are no longer suitable.”