INMO criticise 'obscene' levels of hospital overcrowding

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has described hospital overcrowding as "obscene", as trolley figures emerged showing 679 patients waiting for a bed, the worst so far this year and the second-highest ever recorded.

The hospitals worst affected are University Hospital Limerick with 63 patients on trolleys, Cork University Hospital with 60, Letterkenny University Hospital with 47 and South Tipperary General Hospital with 40.

The INMO said South Tipperary General Hospital is in crisis, because despite being one of the country's smallest hospitals, it has more patients on trolleys that some of the largest.

General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said staff are faced with inhumane working environments, while patients are put at ever-increasing risk. “Winter has not even started, and Irish hospitals are overwhelmed", she said.

The HSE's own trolley figures put the number of patients waiting for a hospital bed at 526 today, with 278 waiting more than nine hours. The highest figure ever recorded by the INMO trolley watch was 714 on 12 March 2018.

In a statement, the HSE said: "The HSE regrets that any patient should have to wait for admission from ED to a hospital ward. However, it is important to note that once a decision is made to admit a patient, they still remain under the care of the staff in ED until they can safely transfer to the appropriate hospital ward for their on-going care.

"While the majority of patients who attend Emergency Departments receive treatment and are discharged home, 20-30% of patients need to be admitted to hospital for further treatment and care.

"Most of our 29 Emergency Departments are reporting both high numbers of patient attendances and patients requiring admission to hospital. Acute hospitals are continuing to see a year-on-year increase in the number of patients requiring treatment and care.

"By the end of September over one million patients had attended our 29 Emergency Departments, 3% more than the same time last year. Almost 263,000 were patients admitted to hospital for further treatment and care."

Labour's health spokesperson Alan Kelly said the trolley figure trends are worrying and said if they are this bad "on a fairly innocuous Tuesday, where there is no sign of bad weather or the worst of any winter viruses have yet to appear, what are the trolley numbers going to be like in the depths of winter?"

Pat Buckley, Sinn Féin TD for East Cork, accused the Government of failing to try and solve the trolley crisis. “This government and its backers in Fianna Fáil have nothing but contempt for the ordinary people of this county and Ireland as a whole who depend on our public health services,” he said. “They also have no respect for the workers in our health services who have to deal with these appalling conditions."

Fianna Fáil TD for Tipperary, Jackie Cahill, said Health Minister Simon Harris needed to act urgently on staffing and capacity issues. “These figures are truly shocking and highlight just how bad things in our health services have become,” he added.