Overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick in January was the highest recorded at any Irish hospital since the INMO began their Trolley Watch analysis.
The nurses’ union is expressing concern that a return to pre-2020 “business as usual” in hospitals could be allowed to continue.
1,300 people were waiting for a hospital bed at some time during January in University Hospital Limerick – seven percent higher than the pre-pandemic figure in January 2020 of 1,215.
In contrast, the INMO has recorded a significant drop in overcrowding at Tipperary University Hospital in Clonmel.
There were 187 people on trolleys there at some point in January – down 73 percent on the pre-pandemic January 2020 figure of 824.
INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha says their members are “frankly embarrassed and tired of apologising to patients for the poor standard of care environments.”
They’re calling on the HSE to take steps to ensure chronic overcrowding doesn’t continue in the coming months.
They want non-urgent elective procedures curtailed until the end of February and bespoke plans for hospitals where overcrowding is a persistent problem.
