Some 709 people are on trolleys waiting for a bed in Irish hospitals today after what was another extremely busy weekend for healthcare workers across the country.
Forty-eight of those patients are at University Hospital Galway – the fifth most overcrowded in the State – while 22 are at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe.
General Secretary for the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation Phil Ní Sheaghdha said that the pressure that nurses and midwives are under can ‘no longer be sustained at this level’.
“Today’s figures demonstrate we have had yet another busy weekend across all hospital sites,” she said. “We have seen a pattern of extremely high levels of overcrowding following weekends, this cannot continue.”
The nurses and midwives union has requested that the HSE immediately carry out a full review of weekend activity across all hospital sites and in the community sector.
