Patients will ‘continue to die on trolleys’ until politicians 'do what needs to be done'

Patients will continue to die needlessly on trolleys in overcrowded emergency departments until politicians do what needs to be done, a consultant in emergency medicine warned yesterday.

Fergal Hickey, who is also the spokesperson for the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine, said the number of patients on trolleys had risen since the political focus had shifted elsewhere.

“Our basic problem remains. There is not enough capacity; there are not enough hospital beds in the system to do what the health service needs to do,” he said.