Same urgency to fixing queues in airports must be applied to hospital trolley crisis – INMO

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has called on the HSE Emergency Department Taskforce to urgently convene in light of abnormal trolley figures. 
This comes as 546 patients are without a bed in Irish hospitals today. 

INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said:

The fact that we have 546 patients without a bed on the 8th of June is not normal. Unless action is taken we are going to continue to see high numbers of patients without a bed in our hospitals. 
The problem of high levels of overcrowding is not just isolated to University Hospital Limerick today, we are seeing huge numbers of patients without a bed in Cork University Hospital, University Hospital Galway, Sligo University Hospital, St. Vincent’s University Hospital, University Hospital Kerry, and St. Luke’s Kilkenny.
The INMO is seeking three immediate actions:
1. The HSE Emergency Department Taskforce must urgently convene to put a hospital-by-hospital plan in place in the short, medium, and long-term. This is time to plan for the winter. The outcome of the Minister of Health’s request to examine and issue recommendations in University Hospital Limerick must be provided to the Taskforce without delay
2. INMO has sought a national meeting with the Health and Safety Authority as we are concerned in relation to the lack of focus and attention to the legal requirement of the HSE and Voluntary hospitals to provide a healthy and safe workplace to workers. 
3. For the Workplace Relations’ Commission to set a date to urgently deal with INMO referral on the breach of the Emergency Department agreement and the implication for stable industrial relations of same. 
Members of the public are being constantly let down when it comes to timely access to healthcare. Longer term implications of these inhumane wait times are reported on but ignored. Waiting for care in inappropriate locations causes patients to have much poorer outcomes, why are we still waiting for the plan to deal with this important issue? The same all of government approach is needed to fixing the current trolley crisis as was applied to the long queues over one weekend in Dublin Airport.