INMO urge HSE to provide 'workable' solutions for overcrowding

The INMO has urged the HSE to bring "something new" to improve patient safery. Stock Image. 

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have urged the HSE to provide "renewed and workable" solutions for Ireland's overcrowding problem on World Safety Day.

The INMO will meet with the HSE's emergency department taskforce on Monday.

So far in September, over 5,210 patients have been left without a bed in Irish hospitals.

Of that number, 100 are children.

INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: "World Patient Safety Day allows us to reflect on the conditions our patients are being treated in. Irish nurses and midwives provide exemplary care but the conditions in which they are expected to carry out their practise are getting worse with each passing day with the number of patients on trolleys in wards right across hospitals increases.

Nurses and midwives are facing into yet another winter where they are left in impossible and often dangerous care environments. 

"We know that overcrowding of this nature has significant impacts on the long-term health outcomes of any patient that spends more than six hours on a trolley."

Ahead of Monday's meeting, the INMO said that the HSE must bring "something new" to the table to ensure "patient safety."

Ms Ní Sheaghda added: "Our members are reporting that significant overcrowding coupled with unmet recruitment and retention targets are making it impossible to provide safe care to those who need it most.

"Year-on-year we are having the same conversations about the very real impact hospital overcrowding is having on patient safety. Senior decision-makers must prioritise the de-escalation of overcrowded areas and remove these very real barriers to providing safe care to patients in our hospitals."