'People on trolleys need hospital treatment — they are not drunks waiting to sober up and go home'

A person is kept on a trolly in the accident and emergency at Cork University Hospital. File Picture: Gerard McCarthy

Hospital emergency departments are facing “a perfect storm” with funding plans failing to deliver on promises to cut the number of patients waiting on trolleys, the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine has warned.

Dr Fergal Hickey of the IAEM was responding to reports in the Irish Examiner that 27,129 people left emergency departments before completing treatment, between July and September.