Nurses at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin have said the only way their industrial action can be averted later this month is if there is a huge improvement in the trolleys crisis.

Nurses at Beaumont Hospital where A&E overcrowding is particularly acute will hold a lunchtime protest today to highlight what they say is an intolerable working environment.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation says it is imperative that Beaumont Hospital go off call immediately for an extended period due to severe overcrowding in the Emergency Department.

Nurses at Beaumont Hospital have called on patients and the public to join them as they hold the first in a series of lunchtime protests at 1pm today.

Nurses working in the Emergency Department in Beaumont Hospital, will hold the first of a series of lunchtime protests at the gates of the hospital today at 1pm.

HOSPITALS in the midlands have been told to brace themselves for yet more overcrowding after a major HSE nursing unit for elderly people was forced to close due to funding and staff cutbacks.

In the final part of our series on how the vulnerable in our society are treated, Sharon Ní Conchúir says fears abound that public nursing homes are slowly being phased out.

Ambulances were being diverted from the Accident and Emergency department at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Mullingar this evening amid what nurses' representatives called "unsafe" levels of overcrowding.