Management at South Tipperary General Hospital is asking people to only attend the emergency department (ED) in cases of a genuine clinical emergency, due to what is termed as ‘sustained pressure on the unit’.
In a statement, the HSE has also appealed to people to attend a GP or Caredoc as a first response, where possible.
Around 100 people on average are presenting themselves at the ED on a daily basis, with between 20 to 25 being admitted.
However, management notes that from time to time a surge in the number of patients presenting occurs. This has been the case recently, and hospital management is putting a lot of this down to increased numbers of elderly people presenting with cases of flu.
Because of this increased level of activity and in order to meet the consequential demand for services, the hospital has had to utilise all available bed capacity – including beds normally reserved for day services. This has led to the postponement and rescheduling of many day procedure appointments and a number of planned, non-emergency inpatient procedures.
Those who have had their procedures postponed will be contacted with a new appointment date as quickly as possible.
While management says that every effort is being made to accommodate patients as quickly as possible, they apologise to those who have been inconvenienced by a delay in transferring them from the ED to a hospital bed.
