Nurses give hospital a week to solve A&E bed crisis

NURSES close to burn-out gave hospital managers one week last night to solve a beds crisis in a new €30 million accident and emergency unit.

The Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) said management at Cork University Hospital (CUH) must double the capacity of a special section in its A&E from 12 beds to 24 to ease the crisis.

The unit, dubbed the country’s poshest A&E, opened on July 4, but INO officer Patsy Doyle said the situation is worse this winter than last with a record number of patients waiting on trolleys this week.

INO figures showed 32 people on trolleys on Tuesday. The figure had dropped to 28 on Thursday when a girl with Multiple Sclerosis had to wait 30 hours for a bed. Twenty-seven people were waiting on trolleys at CUH yesterday.

Ms Dunne said nurses gave hospital management an ultimatum yesterday.

“We need to double the amount of beds in the rapid transition admissions ward,” she said.

There is space for 15 beds but only 12 are in place. “They’ve been given seven days to come back to us or we will be returning to the Labour Relations Commission,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Health Service Executive Southern Area said a number of factors combined to create a busy A&E.

Cases of respiratory illness among elderly patients and the closure of medical beds at the Mercy University Hospital, together with the construction of a new theatre there, had had a knock-on affect, she said.