{"id":226150,"date":"2026-01-04T01:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/226150\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T01:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:03:15","slug":"cork-and-limerick-among-worst-hit-as-hospital-overcrowding-varies-widely-across-munster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/226150\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork and Limerick among worst hit as hospital overcrowding varies widely across Munster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patients across Munster had very different experiences last year depending on the hospital they attended, with new figures showing widely contrasting levels of overcrowding<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has published its end-of-year data on overcrowding in hospitals across the country, which found an \u201cunacceptably high number of patients\u201d had to wait on trolleys in corridors in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In total, 114,029 people were unable to get a hospital bed and were instead treated on trolleys, chairs, or other \u201cinappropriate\u201d spaces.<\/p>\n

At University Hospital Limerick, 22,473 patients went without a bed, the highest recorded figure at any hospital in the country.<\/p>\n

Cork University Hospital was the third worst, with 10,113 patients left on trolleys because of overcrowding.<\/p>\n

In sharp contrast, University Hospital Waterford has almost entirely avoided the type of overcrowding that impacted treatment in other emergency departments, recording the lowest trolley count of all large hospitals, with 239 patients going without a bed in 2025.<\/p>\n

Other hospitals struggling to meet demand were University Hospital Galway, where 11,630 patients could not get a bed, and Sligo University Hospital with 8,004 patients waiting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Counts at Children\u2019s Health Ireland (CHI) showed 1,248 children waiting on trolleys, chairs or buggies last year. This included its sites in Crumlin, Temple Street, and Tallaght.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Separately, HSE figures for New Year\u2019s Day showed nine patients had been waiting longer than 24 hours, including two patients aged over 75.<\/p>\n

INMO general secretary Phil N\u00ed Sheaghdha said: \u201cNurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals must not continue to shoulder public anger arising from repeated failures in planning across the health service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there has been a slight reduction in the number of patients being treated in an inappropriate space in our hospitals, the reliance on surge beds, which are not properly staffed, is a cause of concern.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Surge beds are beds usually used for day-care. The HSE counted 70 people on trolleys on New Year\u2019s Day, but 211 on surge beds.<\/p>\n

Its figures also show 376 people finished treatment but delayed leaving hospital due to a lack of step-down care.<\/p>\n

Across Cork and Kerry, four of its six hospitals are marked in the red for this category, with concerns around access to homecare and nursing home beds for those who should be discharged from hospital.<\/p>\n

Ms Ni Sheaghdha called for \u201cimmediate filling of all funded posts\u201d in hospitals and community services.<\/p>\n

Nurses and midwives are seeing \u201cpersistent staffing gaps\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe continued use of trolleys and reliance on surge capacity mean that too many nurses are routinely working short-staffed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In many hospitals, unfilled rosters are becoming the norm rather than the exception, creating increasingly unsafe conditions for both nurses and patients in our hospitals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patients across Munster had very different experiences last year depending on the hospital they attended, with new figures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[21911,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-226150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-hospital-overcrowding","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}