Galway's acute hospital short of vital beds

PATIENTS could be in danger because Galway’s main public hospital won’t have the number of intensive care beds that it should have, even by the end of this year.

University Hospital Galway has less than a half of the number of special care beds that it is recommended to care for critically ill patients.

The acute hospital has less than a third of the number of High Dependency Unit (HDU) beds that is required, and despite plans to open a small number of extra ICU beds later this year, the hospital will fail to meet the number of beds required as per a recent Critical Care Capacity report.

The report says the hospital should have 21 HDU beds and there are just six operating in Galway at present. The same report recommends 14.5 ICU beds for the Galway hospital and UHG has just ten such beds staffed and in use.

Chief Operating Officer for the West-Northwest Hospital Group Tony Canavan has admitted that the hospital won’t be able to bring the beds up to the level outlined in the report this year. 'We have the space to open two more beds and staff them this year,' he said.

Read more in this week's paper or in our digital edition April 10, 2014.