'The system is overloaded and they cannot cope': Nurses union calls for urgent intervention

Ambulances at the Emergency Department at St. Vincent's Hospital Hospital pictured this afternoon. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins Dublin

Covid-19 is placing the health service under immense pressure and “the system is overloaded" according to the country’s largest union for nurses and midwives.

The latest warning comes as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) claims 7,000 HSE staff are no longer able to work due to Covid-19 reasons and that 2,500 healthcare workers per week are contracting the virus.