Packed Cork University Hospital transfers patients

Cork University Hospital has been forced to move patients to other hospitals in the region because of pressure on its resources due to overcrowding.

A spokesman for the hospital last night confirmed that “up to 15 non-complex” patients were being moved to various hospitals, with the majority going to beds bought in the Mater Private in Mahon, while others went to South Infirmary and Clonakilty Community Hospital.

He confirmed the transfer of the patients was down to overcrowding pressures.

He also intimated that similar moves had been made by other hospitals around the country in recent days.

Extra paramedics were brought in to move the patients from CUH.

News that the hospital was having to move the patients came as a two week closure of elective (non-urgent) surgeries was due to come to an end today.

That fortnight’s closure — the hospital met resistance from surgeons and anaesthetists when it tried to make it three weeks — came at a time when there were 1,431 people on the in-patient/day-case waiting list.

The hospital had claimed it was standard policy to curtail routine elective surgery to allow for a surge in trauma cases over the Christmas period.

Tony McNamara, chief executive of Cork University Hospital, wrote on the hospital’s website calling for “more honest national debate” on the trolley crisis and queried figures published by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

He said many patients were appropriately on trolleys in assessment units, awaiting a decision as to whether they needed to be admitted.