439 people had no bed on admission to Naas Hospital in January
A total of 439 patients had no bed at Naas Hospital when they were admitted to the facility last month.
The overcrowding figure for January 2023 was the highest for that month since 2018 when the January total was 516.
It is more than double the number of patients without a bed, having been admitted through the accident and emergency department, in January of last year.
Across the country almost 11,300 patients were without a bed when admitted for the month.
The worst affected hospitals were University Hospital Limerick (1180 patients), Cork University Hospital (1145), University Hospital Galway (728), Letterkenny University Hospital (650) and St Vincent’s University Hospital (594).
NMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said a lack of adequate planning has put unnecessary stress on nurses and the patients they are trying to provide care for throughout the month of January.
“The number of patients on trolleys in wards outside our emergency departments have been unacceptably high. This practice should not be allowed to continue as a measure to try to take pressure off our emergency departments,” she said.
Ms Ní Sheaghdha said two recent opinion polls showed over 75% of people would not visit an emergency department and the strategy of telling people to not attend hospital will have knock-on effects across the health service for months to come.
“We cannot continue to accept the wait until things get unbearably bad before an attempt is made to lessen the pressure on our public hospital system. Nurses and their patients deserve better than this.”