You should get rid of them to provide more metadata about this software.
debian/patches: 19 patches to forward upstream
low
Among the 20 debian patches
available in version 1:128.5.0esr-1 of the package,
we noticed the following issues:
19 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.