You should get rid of them to provide more metadata about this software.
debian/patches: 23 patches to forward upstream
low
Among the 25 debian patches
available in version 1:4.4.4-18 of the package,
we noticed the following issues:
23 patches
where the metadata indicates that the patch has not yet been forwarded
upstream. You should either forward the patch upstream or update the
metadata to document its real status.