Beaumont ‘unsafe for patients’, says CEO

The head of one of Ireland’s most overcrowded hospitals warned that the facility was "unsafe" for patients — just months after a senior doctor resigned over the situation.

Beaumont Hospital chief executive Liam Duffy made the claim in an August 28 letter to staff, warning that emergency department overcrowding and chronic delays in sending home patients on wards, was severely hampering care standards.

On the day the head of the hospital sent the correspondence, he said 58 patients were waiting in the emergency department, including one who had not been treated for 44 hours.