60 beds to close at two hospitals

SIXTY beds are to shut for up to three months at Cork and Kerry hospitals, delegates at the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) annual conference in Galway heard yesterday.

It also emerged that patients are spending up to three days on trolleys at Cork’s Mercy Hospital’s A&E unit, while supplies such as medical swabs are running out at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

Thirty-one beds will be closing for six weeks at the only male surgical ward in the Mercy Hospital from the end of June until August, while earlier this week it was announced that 30 beds will soon shut at Tralee General Hospital. The measures are to be taken so both hospitals can stay within their budgets, it was claimed. Nurses from both counties say their jobs are becoming “increasingly frustrating and everything is budget, budget, budget while patient services suffer”.