Irish hospitals now so overcrowded they breach safe occupancy limits, report finds

Hospitals are advised to stay under an 85% occupancy rate but in 2023, hospitals across Cork and Kerry ran at 87% occupancy for in-patients and 129.1% for day-wards in the HSE South-West region. File picture

Irish hospitals are now so overcrowded all of the HSE regions breach recommended safe occupancy limits, with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) saying up to 934 extra beds will be needed just for Cork and Kerry by 2040.

This new ESRI data fed into a review of emergency services published by Hiqa for the Mid-West counties this week.

Hospitals are advised to stay under an 85% occupancy rate. This avoids delays or staff burnout and leaves room for large emergencies. 

However, in 2023, hospitals across Cork and Kerry ran at 87% occupancy for in-patients and 129.1% for day-wards in the HSE South-West region.

In the Mid-West — Limerick, Clare and north Tipperary — the in-patient rate was 101.5% and day-patients at 88.8%.

A similar picture was found across the South-East, including Waterford, with in-patient occupancy at 94.9% and day beds 116.8% occupied.

For this and other reasons, more hospital beds are needed by 2040, the ESRI said.

For Cork and Kerry, up to 934 extra beds, to include up to 123 for day patients and up to 811 for in-patient overnight beds, are needed.

In the Mid-West, up to 666 extra beds are needed, including up to 73 for day-care and 593 for inpatient care.

In Dublin South-East, up to 1,501 extra beds are needed by then. This could include up to 165 day patient beds and up to 1,336 in-patient beds.

The Hiqa review “vindicated” people who protested against the overcrowding for years, Marie McMahon said.

The Clare woman joined the Midwest Hospital Campaign after the death of her husband Tommy on a trolley after 36 hours in 2018. 

“For me on a personal level, it’s a vindication of everything we’ve been saying,” she said.

“The overall feeling is here we are now, we’ve been saying this for years and we’ve been ignored but finally we’re being heard.” 

She added: “The facts now stand beside what we’ve been saying. People have paid too high a price for this not to be done.” 

Hiqa offered three options. These included rapidly increasing hospital bed numbers, building an elective hospital near University Hospital Limerick, or building a new hospital with an emergency department in the region.

“It can’t be just Limerick, it has to take into consideration how far people have to travel already to get to UHL,” Ms McMahon said.

Health minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has committed to working on bed numbers and to reflect on the other options.