...
Lack of space pushes patients out of hospital wards: Over 10,000 were moved around last year | India | DR It can damage the treatment when hospitals move around with patients, warn professionals. By A 92-year-old patient admitted to a pediatric ward. An 89-year-old heart patient in a gastrointestinal surgery ward. These are real examples of patients who, due to lack of space, have moved to wards where they do not belong. The so-called loan beds are widespread across the country, and last year more than 10,000 patients assigned one. This is shown by the hospitals 'own registrations, which have been received. The beds are problematic for patients' safety, says Inge Kristensen, who is director of the Danish Society for Patient Safety. - The problem with loan beds is that patients can not receive the same treatment and care can get in the right bed, she says., how several of the country's hospitals are crowded with patients. According to research, this is serious, because when a ward is significantly overcrowded, the excess mortality among patients increases. Hospitals can use loan beds as a valve to take the pressure off the most pressured wards. But it is not the best solution for patients, emphasizes Inge Kristensen. Do you have knowledge or concrete experiences about overcrowding or loan beds? Then you can contact journalist Anders Ejbye-Ernst at aern@dr.dk.- It is a choice between plague or cholera, because it is not optimal to have overcrowding, she says. In the vast majority of the country's hospitals, patients are in average between two and four days in a loan bed, shows the hospitals' own registrations. On the hospital floor of the hospital, staff are daily faced with the hard choice between overcrowding and loan beds. This is what Charlotte Nissen, who is a clinical nurse specialist in the medical ward at Svendborg Hospital, says. - It is on a daily basis that patients are moved around. There is no doubt about that. It's everyday food, she says. Charlotte Nissen says that the staff do what they can to keep their patients in the ward. - We do a lot to ensure that they stay here. Especially for the seriously ill patients, we go to great lengths. And then it may be those who have the infection who continue to smoke, she says, explaining that some patients are moved around up to five times. When thousands of patients are moved around the country's hospitals, it is a symptom that something is wrong. This is the opinion of Christian Borbjerg Laursen, who is research leader and clinical professor at the University of Southern Denmark. - In the ideal world, no one should use borrowed beds. It is an expression that the system is under pressure, he says. Several healthcare professionals have used the analogy 'a choice between plague and cholera' about overcrowding and loan beds. Why do you think they think so? - It signals that both things are bad for the patient. If I had to choose between plague or cholera here, then I still think I would prefer a borrowed bed rather than lying in the hallway of a crowded ward. Then you have some staff who can better keep an eye on you. But this is not an ideal solution, says Christian Borbjerg Laursen, who is also chief physician at the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at Odense University Hospital. is an emergency when staff choose to do so. It is clear that it is not good for the individual patient, he says. In the healthcare system, there is a goal that the right patient should be in the right bed. How does the extensive use of borrowed beds fit into that goal? - It does not fit at all. It just shows that we have some really nice goals. And in the vast majority of patient courses, we live up to it. But we can see that there are patients who fall down through these systems and end up in a bed in a completely different place than where they should have been, says Magnus Heunicke. He believes that the key to combating the overcrowding that often triggers the loan beds, is a boost of the near in the municipalities.- It helps that there are readmissions. It helps the situation with how many are hospitalized, says.