'Already creaking' Munster hospitals at breaking point as stressed medics seek help

A support service for health professionals says some medics are "just broken, they just can’t go on" with some having "suicidal thoughts".

Professor Colette Cowan, Chief Executive of the University of Limerick Hospitals Group, expects all elective work in the hospital group will stop by the end of next week.

Munster's two largest hospitals are at breaking point amid spiralling Covid-19 cases and new warnings that burnt-out frontline healthcare workers could be pushed to the brink in the fourth wave.

As new figures showing the number of stressed medics seeking help has doubled this year, the CEO of the University of Limerick Hospital Group said projections of up to 200,000 cases of the virus in December "would cause the collapse of the health service", while the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said it had written to the HSE calling for urgent curtailment of services in Cork University Hospital.