Shortage of hospital beds in wake of austerity measures

Emergency services have increasing problems placing patients in hospitals, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes, writes in its Thursday edition. The paper cites paramedics as saying that hospitals refuse even critical patients and ambulances sometimes make the round of five hospitals before a patient is admitted. Hospitals say in their defence that they have a shortage of beds due to the austerity measures and have to refuse patients they cannot physically accommodate. The head of the Prague emergency services says that 20 patients were rejected by hospitals in this manner in the course of just two weeks.