IRISH HOSPITALS RECORDED their worst-ever August for overcrowding last month with close to 10,000 patients on trolleys.<\/p>\n
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) reported that over 9,945 patients were admitted without beds throughout the month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
University Hospital Limerick (UHL) was by far the hospital with the worst overcrowding last month \u2013 a total of 1,784 patients were on trolleys.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was followed by Cork University Hospital, which had 830 patients on trolleys; Letterkenny University Hospital with 730 patients; St Vincent\u2019s University Hospital with 728 patients; and Sligo University Hospital with 710 patients.<\/p>\n
The union\u2019s general secretary Phil N\u00ed Sheaghdha said with this overcrowding, patients\u2019 dignity is being compromised.<\/p>\n
N\u00ed Sheaghdha, who is also president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said the trolley figures are the \u201cdirect result\u201d of government decisions to cap and restrict recruitment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are at the point where senior leaders and clinicians in the HSE are refusing to stand behind the current state of the health service,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An \u201calarmingly high\u201d assault rate against hospital staff, increasing staff shortages, and a decline in conditions for patients can only be addressed by a reversal in staffing and recruitment policies and the full implementation of the safe staffing framework, she continued.<\/p>\n
The organisation\u2019s head said members are worried about the winter ahead, as other jurisdictions report record levels of flu hospitalisations and flu presentations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not be equipped or staffed to deal with this scenario here in Ireland,\u201d N\u00ed Sheaghdha said, adding that it is imperative those on the frontline are listened to.<\/p>\n
The Department of Health has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRISH HOSPITALS RECORDED their worst-ever August for overcrowding last month with close to 10,000 patients on trolleys. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[21911,103,397,396,2120,61,48751,60,260821,260822],"class_list":["post-614998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-hospital-overcrowding","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-inmo","tag-ireland","tag-trolley-crisis","tag-worst-ever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614998","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=614998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}