Group to highlight A&E crisis

ALMOST 500 people are set to protest on Good Friday over the high number of people on trolleys in hospital A&E departments.

The Patients Together group is to bring 495 people equivalent to the number on trolleys on March 8 last, according to Irish Nurses' Organisation figures, to Leinster House at midday on April 14.

The protest is taking place under the banner, Lie down and be Counted. Those taking part will lie down in the courtyard of the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The Dáil, however, will be unattended on the planned protest day as it rises on April 6 and will return provisionally on April 25.

Group spokeswoman Janette Byrne, said the protest was a call for immediate action, instead of the promise of longer-term measures.

"We have had a lot of promises and, if anything, the situation has disimproved," she said.

Ms Byrne said the Department's assertion that too many people are attending A&E without good reason and, therefore, exacerbating the overcrowding problem also needed to be addressed.

"The 495 people who were on trolleys had already been admitted and they were looking for a bed. They qualified for a bed and they were not there willy-nilly.