There is a "massive" shortage of intensive care beds for critically ill patients across the State, it was claimed last night.
The Intensive Care Society of Ireland said that as a result patients were being put at risk.
"In general a critically ill patient who is denied any intensive care has a significantly increased chance of dying. Patient care is suffering and the society has no doubt that patient outcomes are being affected," its president Dr Michael Power said.
He was commenting a day after it emerged that St James's Hospital in Dublin had to cancel a number of urgent operations due to a shortage of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. Even major cancer surgery had to be put off as all ICU beds were full and some patients had to be ventilated elsewhere in the hospital.
Dr Power said this was something now happening regularly in many hospitals. "This isn't just a sporadic firework that went off. The problem is increasing and it's now happening in many hospitals nationally on a regular basis. As far as I'm aware it happens not just in Dublin but also in Cork, Limerick and Galway," he said.
"If a patient is placed on a ventilator outside the ICU, this exposes the patient to greater risks than if the same patient was in a protected ICU setting," he added.
The society has already met Minister for Health Mary Harney twice to discuss the problem but little if any progress has been made. It is due to meet her again tomorrow. "The ratio of adult acute ICU beds to acute hospital beds in Ireland is 1.64 per cent, even lower than the UK ratio of 2.44 per cent which is one of the lowest in Europe," Dr Power added.
Yet he pointed out that instead of making plans to increase the ratio, various reports published by the Department of Health and Health Service Executive, such as the Hanly report and the Teamwork report on hospital services in the northeast, contained plans to close ICU beds.
Brendan O'Hare, medical director of the intensive care unit at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, said only 15 of 21 ICU beds in the hospital were currently staffed. As a result cardiac surgery on children was still being cancelled. "It's happening still, once every two weeks at least," he said. Infants were being ventilated on hospital corridors around the country, he added.
The HSE said it is reviewing bed capacity across the country and this will include an assessment of critical care bed needs.
It added that the ICU capacity at St James's had been increased by more than half over the past three years, with five new ICU beds now available in addition to its existing nine. The hospital as a whole has nearly 1,000 beds.
But Dr Jan Moriarty, consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care at St James's, said the extra five beds were "an interim solution" at the time, and the hospital had sought an extra 18 ICU beds.
Ms Harney said the number of critical care beds in St James's was a matter for it and the HSE. But she said she was sorry for any patient who went through the trauma of having an urgent operation cancelled.
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey said the situation at St James's Hospital was a new low for the health service. It highlighted the urgent need for more beds.
Labour's health spokeswoman Liz McManus said she knew of one case where a patient had to wait six months to have open-heart surgery because of a lack of intensive care beds.