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22/02/2012
IAEM Warns Of Overcrowding In Children's Emergency Departments
The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine has voiced grave concern at dangerous levels of Overcrowding in children's Emergency Departments.
The serious clinical risks associated with overcrowding in hospital Emergency Departments are well proven. However, the overcrowding is generally perceived to be a problem almost exclusively affecting elderly patients forced to wait for an inpatient bed.
What may not be recognised is that the overcrowding also occurs in Paediatric Emergency
Departments and that the quality of care for children is adversely affected.
The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine believes PED overcrowding poses unique challenges. "For example, it is neither ethically acceptable nor physically possible to place ‘boarded’ children and their parents on hospital ED corridors. Having admitted inpatients in an ED also creates even more pressure on ED staff to locate adequate space to see new patients presenting," they said.
The association reports that children's hospital overcrowding is more a seasonal phenomenon than in adult practice with the main difficulty being the availability of single isolation rooms suitable to accommodate children with infectious disease who instead must wait for a bed in the less appropriate environment of a PED.
Levels of overcrowding in Irish PEDs are now at historically high and dangerous levels and they need immediate attention. Clinicians at the Children’s University Hospital, Temple Street (CUH) and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin (OLCHC) report significantly worsening ED overcrowding this winter which follows on from gradually deteriorating conditions over recent years. The situation in Tallaght Hospital (formerly AMNCH, Tallaght), although worse than previously, has been addressed by reversing plans to close beds supported by other proactive measures.
(GK)
The serious clinical risks associated with overcrowding in hospital Emergency Departments are well proven. However, the overcrowding is generally perceived to be a problem almost exclusively affecting elderly patients forced to wait for an inpatient bed.
What may not be recognised is that the overcrowding also occurs in Paediatric Emergency
Departments and that the quality of care for children is adversely affected.
The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine believes PED overcrowding poses unique challenges. "For example, it is neither ethically acceptable nor physically possible to place ‘boarded’ children and their parents on hospital ED corridors. Having admitted inpatients in an ED also creates even more pressure on ED staff to locate adequate space to see new patients presenting," they said.
The association reports that children's hospital overcrowding is more a seasonal phenomenon than in adult practice with the main difficulty being the availability of single isolation rooms suitable to accommodate children with infectious disease who instead must wait for a bed in the less appropriate environment of a PED.
Levels of overcrowding in Irish PEDs are now at historically high and dangerous levels and they need immediate attention. Clinicians at the Children’s University Hospital, Temple Street (CUH) and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin (OLCHC) report significantly worsening ED overcrowding this winter which follows on from gradually deteriorating conditions over recent years. The situation in Tallaght Hospital (formerly AMNCH, Tallaght), although worse than previously, has been addressed by reversing plans to close beds supported by other proactive measures.
(GK)
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