INMO: Putting Emergency Dept patients into hospital wards not a solution

Nurses appear to be on a collision course with the Minister for Health Leo Varadkar over the latest hospital overcrowding crisis.

Minister Varadkar last night said that two extra beds should be placed on hospital wards as it was safer than having up to 40 people on trolleys in Emergency Departments.

However the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation disagrees.

INMO spokesman Liam Doran said it has already been proven not to work.

He said: "This has already been done for the last number of weeks and months in hospitals like Drogheda, and Limerick, and Tallaght, and Connolly and it has not resulted in a reduction in Emergency Department overcrowding at all.

"Overcrowding wards has not, isn't, and never will solve Emergency Department overcrowding"

Meanwhile, the numbers waiting on trolleys for admission to hospitals today has fallen to 371.

An all time high of more than 600 had been reached on Tuesday, and many hospitals were forced to cancel elective procedures because of the overcrowding.

Deputy General Secretary of the INMO David Hughes welcomed today's improvement but warns the crisis is far from over: "It is heading in the right direction, but people waiting on trolleys and chairs today is not good news"