352 patients had no bed in March
Overcrowding at hospital
Some 352 patients admitted to Naas Hospital last month had no bed immediately available.
This was the number of patients on trolleys who came in via the hospital's emergency department in March, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
However this was an improvement on March 2022 when 387 people had no bed.
The worst March figure since the INMO began collecting data was in 2011 when 778 had no bed.
By comparison just 98 patients had no bed in similar circumstances at Portlaoise Hospital and this compared with 96 in 2023
At Tullamore Hospital there were no patients without a trolley on admission last month and there were 11 the year before.
The most overcrowded hospital was University Hospital Limerick which had 1,961 patients without a bed followed by Cork University Hospital (1,079); University Hospital Galway (685); St Vincent’s Hospital (Dublin) (605) and Sligo University Hospital (525).
Across the country some 9,856 patients had no bed.
INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “It has been an extremely busy month in Irish hospitals. We are still continuing to see a worrying number of patients on trolleys in hospitals across the western seaboard and in the Midwest.
“The fact is that nurses and midwives will be working short in wards that have significant vacancies due to the HSE recruitment moratorium.”
She added the INMO has discussed the “grave impact” that the recruitment freeze is having on the working lives of its members at a conciliation conference organised through the Workplace Relations Commission.