Nearly twice as many patients were left on trolleys waiting for beds at University Hospital Limerick in August than at any other hospital in the State, according to the latest figures on overcrowding from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
The union’s Trolley Watch count shows this year’s was the worst August on record for emergency department overcrowding since the INMO began compiling the tally in 2006.
Some 1,885 patients were recorded as waiting on trolleys in emergency departments or wards during the month at University Hospital Limerick, an increase of two-thirds on the 1,130 patients counted a year earlier.
There were 984 patients recorded as waiting for beds on trolleys at Cork University Hospital over the month, and 920 patients counted as waiting in emergency departments in University Hospital Galway.
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The INMO recorded 737 patients waiting for beds at Sligo University Hospital during the month, and a further 539 at Letterkenny University Hospital. St James’s Hospital in Dublin had 207 patients waiting on trolleys over the month of August last year, which more than doubled to 438 this year.
Across the hospital system there were 9,720 recorded instances of patients admitted to hospital being left waiting for a bed during August, an increase on the 9,603 counted a year earlier.
Phil Ní Sheaghdha, INMO general secretary, said the high numbers waiting for beds during the traditionally quieter summer period did not bode well for the coming winter.
“Last year was the previous record for August overcrowding, and the winter that followed was honestly beyond what we could have imagined,” she said. “This August is somehow worse again, and our members are worried, for themselves, and for their patients, about what is in store for them over the coming months,” she said.
Ms Ní Sheaghdha said vulnerable patients should not be “languishing on trolleys and chairs for days at a time” in hospitals. She said she had no doubt that the coming winter would again be a “difficult and dangerous” time in hospitals due to likely overcrowding in emergency departments.
“The INMO is of the view that this situation is not being met with the required urgency or focus required. The constant state of overcrowding in our hospitals is a leading cause of nurses and midwives intending to leave their current work areas and indeed the professions altogether,” she said.
Responding to the INMO figures, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that prior to August the average numbers waiting on trolleys had been on a “very clear” downward trend since March. He said his department was in talks with the HSE about why overcrowding had “gone back up” in recent weeks.
The Minister said the aim was to return to reductions rather than increases in the number of patients waiting on trolleys for beds “right through the autumn” ahead of the busy winter period.
