Publishing their first monthly TrolleyWatch report of 2022, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has said that chronic overcrowding cannot be allowed to become the norm once again in our hospitals.
This comes as 8,636 patients were on trolleys in the month of January. The hospitals with the highest level of overcrowding include:
1. University Hospital Limerick (1,300)
2. Letterkenny University Hospital (817)
3. Cork University Hospital (750)
4. University Hospital Galway (738)
5. Sligo University Hospital (526)
INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: We have seen the highest levels of January overcrowding in these hospitals since the INMO began Trolleywatch in 2006.” Ms Ni Sheagha said “It is not acceptable to us that chronic overcrowding is allowed to continue while COVID is still rampant in many of our hospitals. “Our members are frankly embarrassed and tired of apologising to patients for the poor standard of care environments.
Dr. Niamh Cummins, Lecturer in Public Health, at the School of Medicine in University of Limerick says her research indicated that there may have been more than 300 excess deaths annually in Ireland due to delayed care at Emergency Departments.
Speaking on Tipp Mid West Radio, Dr Cummins says there is increased risk for patients that spend 5 to 6 hours or more experiencing delayed admission.
The INMO has again called for all hospitals to curtail non urgent elective procedures until the end of February and for bespoke plans to be put in place for hospitals where chronic overcrowding is a persistent feature of the hospital environment.”
The call comes as a total of 8631 new cases of Covid have been confirmed by a combination of PCR tests and self-reported antigen tests recorded on the HSE website.
As of 8am today there were 692 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of whom 75 are in ICU which is an improving situation.
