Hospital overcrowding: Plan for 63 additional acute beds an ‘insult’

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has described as an “insult” the proposal to add 63 beds to the acute hospital system in the context of trolley figures reaching a record high of 612 this week.

In fact, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said, the figure has an “element of recycling” given that of 55 beds promised last September when the winter initiative was first unveiled, just 17 have materialised.

“So we are not going to get 55+63, it will be 17+63, giving a total of 80,” said Liam Doran, general secretary of the INMO.