The number of patients on trolleys in Dublin is falling, but overcrowding continues outside Dublin, according to new figures released last night by the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO).
The INO said a detailed examination of the figures outside Dublin confirmed that while progress had been made in some hospitals, severe difficulties remained in the A&E departments in Letterkenny, Cavan, Drogheda, Castlebar and Limerick.
It released figures showing that in Dublin there had been a reduction of 41 per cent in the number of people on trolleys in October, compared with October last year. This trend continued in November, with a reduction of 33 per cent, compared with November 2005.
The figures for outside Dublin showed a rise of 16 per cent in the number on trolleys in October 2006 compared with the same period last year, but a decrease of 1.8 per cent last month.
Overall, there was a 19 per cent reduction in the numbers of people on trolleys in October, according to the INO, and 19.1 per cent reduction in November.
INO general secretary Liam Doran said the progress in reducing A&E overcrowding was welcome, but the figures were a bit misleading as most of the reductions had taken place in Dublin rather than outside the capital.
"The pace of progress in October and November has been uneven and, in a number of hospitals, the situation has worsened."
Mr Doran said the reason for the slowdown was either an inadequate number of acute beds or the lack of high-dependency beds.
The INO welcomed Budget initiatives "committing the HSE to providing more than 740 long- stay care beds next year, with 446 in the public sector". However, it said it was imperative the long- stay public beds "which must be capable of receiving high-dependency patients" be brought onstream immediately.
It said this would ease the continuing practice of patients being left in acute beds when their acute care was complete because there was no appropriate continuing care facility.
"We are now entering the main winter period when the level of A&E overcrowding has traditionally been most severe," said Mr Doran.
A HSE spokesman said its own figures were reflecting a significant reduction in A&E waiting times compared with last year.
"We would contend that the figures are also significantly down outside Dublin as well, except for a couple of hospitals," the spokesman said. "We would contend that outside Dublin, figures were significantly down."
The main problem hospital outside Dublin was Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda, he said.
HSE figures supplied last night showed five patients waiting more than 24 hours for admission in this hospital while two were waiting more than 24 hours in the Mater.
The HSE figures said nobody was waiting for admission in 15 hospitals yesterday. It said yesterday's figures of 87 people waiting for admission was 38 per cent lower than its comparable figure of 140 at this time last year.
Figures for Letterkenny General Hospital were not in when it was compiling its daily bulletin.