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Article: Hospital's 130% bed occupancy
- Article from:
- Belfast Telegraph
- Article date:
- February 17, 2003
CopyrightCopyright 2003 Belfast Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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THERE has been much media coverage highlighting on-going
difficulties in hospital services.
And while it is understandable that this should focus on the
problems in the medical and surgical wards of acute hospitals, other
parts of the system must not be ignored.
In the last quarter of 2002 a relative with learning difficulties
had to go into the secure assessment unit at Muckamore Abbey for a
number of weeks.
The position at that time was that the unit itself had 18 beds but
22/23 patients with the situation being "managed" by bedding out some
patients in other wards within Muckamore every night.
To put this in perspective, the secure unit at that time was
operating at 130% bed occupancy!
As ...