€12m unit ‘won’t cut A&E queues’

NURSES at one of the country’s biggest hospitals claim the long-awaited opening of its €12 million accident and emergency unit will do little to reduce the numbers of patients on trollies.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) has asked hospital management at Cork University Hospital to consider re-developing parts of the existing A&E into a holding bay which can be used to take some of the trolley spillover from the new unit.

CUH A&E consultant, Stephen Cusack said yesterday that such a proposal “was an admission of defeat” but admitted that the “trollies problem is a separate issue from the A&E opening”.