The same urgency applied to fixing Dublin Airport queues must be used to tackle hospital overcrowding, the Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation (INMO) has said.
The workers union is calling for the Health Service Executive’s Emergency Department Task Force to be urgently convened in light of the “abnormal” trolley figures, including 546 patients who were without a bed on Wednesday.
Issues this week are not confined to University Hospital Limerick, which cancelled many scheduled appointments last week due to a spike in emergency department attendances, according to the group.
On Tuesday, Cork University Hospital warned of delays as it saw an increase in attendance there due to a “large number of very ill medical patients requiring admission”.
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INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said on Wednesday that there were “huge numbers” of patients without a bed in hospitals in Cork, Galway, Sligo, Dublin, Kerry and Kilkenny.
“The same all-of-government approach is needed to fix the current trolley crisis as was applied to the long queues over one weekend in Dublin Airport,” she said.
The INMO’s plea comes after new figures this week showed at least 1.3 million people – a quarter of the State’s population – are on some form of waiting list for health services. Of these, 897,000 people are on hospital waiting lists, including 100,000 children.
Overall, healthcare waiting lists have lengthened by more than 30 per cent since the start of the pandemic, according to the HSE figures.
The INMO is calling on the HSE task force to create a “hospital-by-hospital” plan for the short, medium and long terms.
Ms Ní Sheaghdha highlighted the longer-term implications of “inhumane” wait times, arguing that waiting in inappropriate locations leads to poorer patient outcomes.
A lack of focus and attention to the requirement to provide a healthy and safe workplace has caused the INMO to seek a national meeting with the Health and Safety Authority, she added.
