Varadkar invited to join A&E nurses for 12-hour shift

Nurses in the emergency department of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda have invited the Minister for Health Leo Varadkar to join them for one of their 12-hour shifts.

Tomorrow, the nurses will stage a lunchtime protest to highlight their ongoing concerns over the conditions in the department, which frequently has more than 40 people who have been admitted as in-patients, waiting on trolleys for beds.

In the year to July the number of admitted patients who were on trolleys had doubled to 632 from 317, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.