 Patients line Irish hospital corridors. pic: Irish Echo IRELAND: The number of patients on trolleys in Irish hospitals waiting for a bed continues to rise.
Figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) indicate that today a total of 467 patients were on trolleys in either hospital wards or emergency departments. According to the figures on the INMO trolly and ward watch website, 374 of those waiting are in emergency departments and 93 are on trolleys in wards. Figures The top three offenders were the Beaumont Hospital in Dublin where a total of 49 patients were listed as being on trolleys. Followed by University Hospital in Galway with 37 patients on trolleys. And the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore had 33 patients waiting on a trolley for a permanent bed. Union comment Speaking to RTE News today INMO General Secretary, Liam Doran, said the number of people on trolleys was still increasing on an annual basis, and he was not convinced of previous claims that the problem was improving. He claimed that patients left on trolleys were just being moved from emergency department corridors to hospital wards in an effort to clear the ER area and figures for this year were up by 2 per cent. Mr Doran said that Trolly and Ward Watch was now more accurately capturing the totality of the overcrowding problem in Irish hospitals by counting patients on all beds trolleys and chairs in the ER and also on hospital wards. Holiday period The Health Service Executive say the increase can be linked to the seasonal influx of patients that present at hospitals following the Christmas and the New Year period. Trolley & Ward Watch The INMO released Trolley and Ward Watch in April 2013 as a successor of the old trolleywatch website. It was updated to give a combined measure of hospital overcrowding to include both emergency departments and hospital wards.
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