Scheduled operations and admissions to Cork University Hospital have been cancelled after 460 people presented at its emergency department (ED) over the bank holiday weekend.

A husband thought he was doing the right thing by rushing his beloved wife back to Cork University Hospital’s (CUH) mental health unit after she overdosed. He thought the unit’s medical staff, who had been caring for her earlier, could organise the urgent care she so desperately needed.

With 528 patients on trolleys for up to 20 hours awaiting hospital beds, emergency medicine consultants have repeated to HSE chiefs the overcrowding crisis will not be solved without extra doctors, nurses and beds.

Child sex abuse victims are attending Galway University Hospital’s emergency department (ED) for examination because the State’s only 24-hour forensic treatment service for under-14s has closed.

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As hospitals brace themselves for industrial action, the country’s largest nursing union has called on the public to join in a major protest outside the Dáil today to highlight emergency department (ED) overcrowding.

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.

Sick patients were put at risk by the State’s failure to hold Tallaght Hospital to account, the health watchdog has found.