KILDARE: Nearly 270 people had no hospital bed last month
Overcrowding
A total of 266 people had no bed available for them after they were admitted to Naas Hospital through the accident and emergency department last month.
This is 20 less than the figure recorded for November 2022 and is significantly less than the highest ever figure recorded for November when 431 patients had no bed on admission in November 2019.
The most overcrowded hospital was University Hospital Limerick (1962 patients), followed by Cork University Hospital (1159); Sligo University Hospital (804); . Galway University Hospital (751) and Mater University Hospital (698).
According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation some 11,493 patients, including 434 children, went without a bed in Irish hospitals in November.
General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said: “The sheer volume of patients who were admitted to hospitals without a bed this November are far too high. The call has to be made now ahead of what is going to be a dangerous situation to curtail non-urgent elective activity and ensure that our private hospitals are available to assist. There is absolutely no point in waiting until we are mid-crisis to act.”
Ms Ni Sheaghdha said the current moratorium on recruitment “which is predicted to get worse in the early part of next year” will require further curtailment of services and “the HSE must ensure that that is planned in order to avoid this continuous discommoding of patients on the day of procedures.”