More than a 100,000 people have been admitted to hospital without a bed already this year – with University Hospital Limerick by far the most overcrowded in the country.
The INMO says safe staffing underpinned by legislation is “urgently required in order to protect patients.”
UHL has almost double the figures of the next most overcrowded hospital with 17,668 patients admitted with no bed since January.
The next nearest total was in Cork where CUH had 10,471.
Staff at Tipperary University Hospital in Clonmel have cared for 2,234 patients on trolleys this year according to the INMO while the figure for Nenagh is 342.
582 people are waiting for beds today alone with University Hospital Limerick is once again the worst affected with 82 people on trolleys – a new record of 130 was set earlier this week.
The Executive Council of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation met yesterday and General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha says “behind the trolley figures every day are extremely vulnerable patients being treated in undignified and dangerous conditions.”
She says it’s “shocking that the necessary measures have not been taken by the HSE and individual hospital groups to alleviate this level of overcrowding.”
