INMO call for direct intervention as trolley figures 'spiral out of control'

There are currently 725, as of Monday night, with the disease compared to 997 on the same day two weeks ago.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisations (INMO) has said the hospital trolley numbers are "spiralling out of control" and are calling non-emergency care to be curtailed until February.

It comes as 549 patients are on trolleys in Irish hospitals today, with 111 and of them in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) alone.

This is the second day in a row where a national record has been broken by the hospital, according to the INMO.

Phil Ní Sheaghdha, general secretary of the INMO, said the situation is "out of control" and called for direct intervention from Health Minister Stephen Donnelly.

“It is unacceptable to our members that this level of overcrowding is allowed to continue while Covid is still a very real feature in our hospitals," Ms Ní Sheaghdha said.

On Tuesday, the INMO called for HIQA to investigate the situation in University Hospital Limerick and are now calling for direct intervention from the HSE and health minister.

“Time and time again, our members have called for real and meaningful action to curb the overcrowding crisis in our hospitals.

"Non-emergency care must be curtailed in our hospitals until the end of February to allow nurses and midwives to have some chance of doing their jobs safely.” 

She added: "We cannot go back to business as usual in our hospitals as society begins to reopen."

Covid hospitalisations drop by almost 18% in a week

The number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 has dropped by 18% in the last week.

There are currently 739 people in hospital with the disease, a drop of 85 since Tuesday and compared to 997 on the same day two weeks ago.

The figure exceeded 1,000 at the peak of the Omicron wave.

There are no 74 patients with Covid-19 in ICU, the lowest number since November.

The five-day moving average of Covid cases has also decreased by 37% over the past week and is now under 9,500.

Infectious diseases consultant in Beaumont Hospital, Eoghan de Barra, says the majority of patients in hospitals with the coronavirus are not very sick.

He said: "Even these numbers over-represent the severity of it because the majority of those patients happily are fully vaccinated and are not particularly sick with Covid itself.

"So I think there's going to be a long tail to hospitalised numbers but the key thing again will be just how sick they are with Covid."

The infectious disease society carried out a survey of almost half of all patients in hospital with Covid-19 and found that around 70% of them didn't require additional oxygen at the time.

Dr de Barra added: "The vast majority of patients were not particularly ill and that continues to be the case, but there are still some becoming severely ill and some patients ending up in intensive care unit."