Nurses say 525 patients on trolleys around Ireland today

There are 525 patients who require admission to a hospital waiting on trolleys in emergency departments or on wards for a bed on Thursday, nurses have said.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said the hospitals experiencing the worst levels of overcrowding were University Hospital Limerick and Cork University Hospital where there were 57 people waiting for a bed.

The nurses’union said therewere 48 patients queuing for a bed at University Hospital Galway.

The INMOfigures show there has been decrease since Wednesday in the level of overcrowding. The union said that on Wednesday there had been 591 patients on trolleys in emergency departments or on wards waiting for admission to a hospital bed.

The surge in trolley numbers this week came at a time of controversy over preparations for the anticipated increase in demand for hospital services during the winter.

Health service staff reacted angrily to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s call for hospital consultants, nurses and other medics to forego extended leave over Christmas and New Year to manage peak demand.

The Taoiseach's comments in the Dáil came in the wake of a report in The Irish Times which said an official health service assessment had found that special Government funding provided last winter came too late in the year to be effective and this year a final plan for dealing with additional pressures on services was only now being finalised at the Department of Health.