The Mid-Western Health Board yesterday appealed to the public to avail of general practitioners' services wherever possible.
In a statement it pointed out that in the past 24 hours 127 patients were seen in the accident and emergency department at the Regional Hospital, Limerick, the highest since the nursing dispute began.
This increase was putting a "tremendous pressure on all staff and in the event of an early settlement, all services will continue to be under strain for some time and it is likely to take several days before normality will be resumed".
It added that elective admissions and outpatient appointments continued to be cancelled in all of the acute hospitals under the control of the board.