Cork and Limerick among worst hit as hospital overcrowding varies widely across Munster

New INMO data highlights major disparities between Munster hospitals, with overcrowding levels varying dramatically from site to site

At University Hospital Limerick, 22,473 patients went without a bed, the highest recorded figure at any hospital in the country. Picture: Dan Linehan

Patients across Munster had very different experiences last year depending on the hospital they attended, with new figures showing widely contrasting levels of overcrowding. 

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has published its end-of-year data on overcrowding in hospitals across the country, which found an “unacceptably high number of patients” had to wait on trolleys in corridors in 2025. 

In total, 114,029 people were unable to get a hospital bed and were instead treated on trolleys, chairs, or other “inappropriate” spaces.

At University Hospital Limerick, 22,473 patients went without a bed, the highest recorded figure at any hospital in the country.

Cork University Hospital was the third worst, with 10,113 patients left on trolleys because of overcrowding.

In sharp contrast, University Hospital Waterford has almost entirely avoided the type of overcrowding that impacted treatment in other emergency departments, recording the lowest trolley count of all large hospitals, with 239 patients going without a bed in 2025.

Other hospitals struggling to meet demand were University Hospital Galway, where 11,630 patients could not get a bed, and Sligo University Hospital with 8,004 patients waiting. 

Counts at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) showed 1,248 children waiting on trolleys, chairs or buggies last year. This included its sites in Crumlin, Temple Street, and Tallaght. 

Separately, HSE figures for New Year’s Day showed nine patients had been waiting longer than 24 hours, including two patients aged over 75.

INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “Nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals must not continue to shoulder public anger arising from repeated failures in planning across the health service.

“While there has been a slight reduction in the number of patients being treated in an inappropriate space in our hospitals, the reliance on surge beds, which are not properly staffed, is a cause of concern.” 

Surge beds are beds usually used for day-care. The HSE counted 70 people on trolleys on New Year’s Day, but 211 on surge beds.

Its figures also show 376 people finished treatment but delayed leaving hospital due to a lack of step-down care.

Across Cork and Kerry, four of its six hospitals are marked in the red for this category, with concerns around access to homecare and nursing home beds for those who should be discharged from hospital.

Ms Ni Sheaghdha called for “immediate filling of all funded posts” in hospitals and community services.

Nurses and midwives are seeing “persistent staffing gaps”, she said.

“The continued use of trolleys and reliance on surge capacity mean that too many nurses are routinely working short-staffed. 

"In many hospitals, unfilled rosters are becoming the norm rather than the exception, creating increasingly unsafe conditions for both nurses and patients in our hospitals,” she said.