Experts slammed St James’s Hospital yesterday for offering its staff cash prizes in a bid to free up beds faster.
Incentives of up to €500 were part of a competition to get discharged patients to vacate their beds early in the day.
The move by the Dublin hospital was called “ill-judged” by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association.
The posters for the competition have since been taken down and St James’s has apologised.
But a spokesperson for the Irish Hospital Consultants Association said it isn’t the posters but the severe shortage of acute hospital beds which is the main issue.
They said: “While the method, encouraging prompt discharge of patients at St James’s Hospital through incentives for individual hospital wards, was ill-judged, it does not take away from the underlying issue faced by the hospital professionals and all acute hospitals across the country.
“Namely, the severe shortage of acute hospital beds.
“This lack of capacity translates in practice into significant numbers of patients waiting on chairs or being treated on trolleys, and intensifies pressures on staff, such as at St James’s, to discharge patients as quickly as medically appropriate.”
