GHA focuses on beds

St Bernard’s Hospital should never again become a place for housing long-stay elderly patients, Health Minister Neil Costa told a GHA Board meeting yesterday during discussions on bed management issues.
Bed occupancy was a persistent problem the GHA had grappled with, as many beds were taken up by elderly long stay and dementia patients.
However, the long-standing issue had been addressed through bed management meetings held in co-operation with sister and charge nurses, coupled to the recent opening of Hillsides dementia care facility.
Yesterday’s board meeting was the first since the appointment of Neil Costa as the Minister for Health, who said it has become the government’s mission to ensure long stay elderly patients do not continue to congest hospital beds.
“We need to make sure that…we never go back to a point where the hospital becomes a place where people stay, when they should be cared for in an elderly care institution,” Mr Costa said.
“I think we need to make sure that we never go back to that.”
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