INO accused of misleading claims about bed closures

The Health Service Executive has accused the Irish Nurses Organisation of making misleading claims about bed closures and accident and emergency overcrowding.

The INO said earlier today that there were twice as many beds lying idle in Irish hospitals as there were patients waiting on trolleys in A&E units.

It claimed A&E overcrowding could be alleviated if these beds were re-opened, but the HSE said this was misleading as most of the idle beds were in hospitals with no A&E wards.

Health Minister Mary Harney has put forward her own €500m plan to alleviate the A&E crisis by opening 1,000 new public hospital beds in the next 10 years.