You should get rid of them to provide more metadata about this software.
debian/patches: 22 patches to forward upstream
low
Among the 24 debian patches
available in version 1:4.4.4-19 of the package,
we noticed the following issues:
22 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.