Over 200 people treated on trolleys in Kildare's main hospital in January

Some 205 people were treated on trolleys at Naas Hospital in January, having been admitted through the accident and emergency department.

This was less than half (499) the number of patients on trolleys there for January 2025.

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An analysis of January overcrowding figures for the past ten years by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation back to 2016 showed that the most overcrowded January was in 2108 when 516 people were admitted on trolleys.

The lowest figure was in 2201 when there were just 65 on trolleys but that was during the Covid 19 pandemic when people were advised to stay at home.

There were 82 patients on trolleys at Portlaoise Hospital last month and none at all at Tullamore Hospital.

The most worst affected facility was the perennially overcrowded Limerick University Hospital with 1,991 on trolleys, followed by University Hospital Galway (1,356); Cork University Hospital (1,026), Sligo University Hospital (995) and Letterkenny University Hospital (898).

The INMO said over 13,000 patients were treated without a bed in hospitals in January and in addition to the high numbers of patients on trolleys, it has raised concerns with the HSE about the continuous use of “so-called surge capacity”, which “involves additional bed capacity for which no additional staffing is allocated.”

INMO general secretary INMO general secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said: “Our members are reporting long waits for patients, high numbers of patients on wards, and additional surge capacity being introduced across hospitals to accommodate additional need. 

“The pressure placed on existing staff is already enormous when they are caring for 13,000 patients in additional inappropriate spaces in one month (and) the use of unstaffed surge beds disguises the true scale of the overcrowding problem.” 

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said it’s a crisis made worse by a failure to appropriately resource community services, which should be relieving pressure on hospitals and allowing patients to seek appropriate care in other settings “but they simply have not been adequately funded or staffed, and this has an effect across the entire health service.”

She added: “The system and our members are completely overwhelmed, and the solution has to start with staffing if we are to improve working conditions for our members and ensure safe and dignified care for anyone attending our hospitals.”