Over 760 patients are without a bed in Irish hospitals today. The highest amount of patients that have been on trolleys since January 2020.
Today’s trolley figures are unacceptably high. This level of overcrowding is a danger to patients and staff, alike. The HSE, Government and each individual hospital group must take urgent action today and pull every lever available to them to ease the pressure in our hospitals.
The INMO has this morning urged the worst impacted hospitals to enact their emergency protocols.
The INMO has been calling on the HSE and Government to take extraordinary measures including the complete use of private hospitals and curtailment of non-urgent elective care since the summer, it is not too late to bring private hospitals on the pitch. We cannot accept this level of unsafety for patients and staff.
Today’s record overcrowding was entirely predictable, the INMO has been warning this was going to happen, medics have been doing the same. Warnings from those who are working on the frontline should not fall on deaf ears.
Behind these figures are patients who are being stripped of their dignity and privacy while being deemed sick enough to be admitted to hospital. We know that more often than not our members are working in conditions that are unsafely staffed, meaning that providing safe care in an overcrowded environment is impossible.
It is clear that our public health service cannot cope with this level of overcrowding. Serious and immediate intervention is needed today from the new Taoiseach and the Minister for Health.