High level of hospital overcrowding persists ahead of busy winter season

The HSE’s assessment of delays on Wednesday shows 319 people on trolleys and a further 447 on temporary surge beds. 

Patients are still facing unusually high levels of summer overcrowding with 496 waiting for a hospital bed by Wednesday morning.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation counted 84 people without a bed at University Hospital Limerick, 20 at Cork University Hospital and also 20 at the smaller Tipperary University Hospital (TUH) in Clonmel.

At Bantry hospital nine patients were on temporary beds on wards, the union reported. This hospital does not have an emergency department. Hospitals in Sligo, Donegal and Galway were also overcrowded and unable to find a space for every patient admitted through emergency departments.

A separate assessment of the trolley delays by the HSE showed 47 people waiting longer than 24 hours across all its hospitals. These figures show the pressures on smaller hospitals are also rising.

Among that group, for example, were four people without a bed at TUH, four waiting at University Hospital Kerry and five waiting at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork.

UHL had the largest group of long waiters with 11 people waiting over 24 hours by Wednesday morning.

The impact of gaps in community care including homecare, nursing home beds and respite beds is also clear in the overcrowding data.

The HSE’s figures show 550 people whose treatment is finished and are still in hospital beds. They cannot be discharged because they are waiting for a service or help in the community.

This includes five at Nenagh hospital, two in Ennis and 17 at St John’s Hospital in Limerick as well as 31 at UHL.

Some of the Dublin hospitals are also facing problems in discharging patients. There were 24 waiting to leave at Beaumont hospital and 20 at the Mater hospital.

Earlier this week, the Irish Examiner reported on a 15-year-old with severe autism living in the emergency department of a Dublin hospital, while the closest residential placement the HSE can offer her is 300km from her home.

The HSE’s assessment of delays on Wednesday is equally stark. It shows 319 people on trolleys and a further 447 on temporary surge beds. 

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Both sets of data from the INMO and the HSE show some hospitals are not facing the same high levels of overcrowding.

At University Hospital Waterford the HSE recorded zero patients on trolleys or surge beds. This was also the case in Drogheda hospital.

The INMO and other health unions have raised concerns about the level of overcrowding at this time of year.

Questions were also raised about the potential impact of the heatwaves in increasing patient numbers and the readiness of the system for this.

• Niamh Griffin, health correspondent