Highest number of patients on hospital trolleys for two years

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has called for urgent action on out of control trolley figures as 603 patients - including 15 at Mayo University Hospital - are without a bed in Irish hospitals today.

This is the highest number of patients on trolleys since February 4, 2020.

INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “The number of patients without a bed in our hospitals today is simply unacceptable and should not be tolerated.

"The fact that we have over six hundred patients on trolleys while Covid is still a very real feature in our hospitals is inexcusable.

“Since the first week of January in particular, the INMO has been calling for urgent action to ensure that trolley numbers do not rise to unsustainable levels, yet here we are barely the second week of February with a dangerous amount of patients on trolleys.

“This issue is not just confined to one part of the country, we are seeing huge amounts of patients waiting on trolleys in University Hospital Limerick (71), Cork University Hospital( 58), University Hospital Galway(46), Letterkenny University Hospital (44), St.Luke’s Kilkenny (44), Sligo University Hospital (43), St. Vincent’s University Hospital (37) and Portiuncula Hospital (24).

"We are calling for the Emergency Department Taskforce to be convened and for emergency measures to be deployed in the areas worst hit.

“We cannot allow the health service to revert to form and allow pre-Covid levels of overcrowding to become the norm once again in our hospitals.

"Patients and nursing staff deserve better. If non-emergency services need to be curtailed in order to allow the HSE and hospital groups to get a handle on out of control trolley figures then that must be done.

“It is not acceptable to our members to allow overcrowding become an out of control problem once again.”