National day of protest to take place outside hospitals later this month

A National day of protest is to take place outside hospitals across Ireland on Saturday, January 21st.

The objective of the demonstrations is to put pressure on the Government to address the current crisis in the hospital sector.

The Aontú Party says the Government is closing wards instead of building new ones to address the increase in population. Deputy Peadar Toibín says the number of hospital staff is decreasing when the number of patients is increasing.

Meanwhile, the head of the HSE is admitting its winter plan and multi year plans to deal with overcrowding 'clearly' aren't sufficient. Public healthcare providers have been told to move to a 'seven over seven' operating model to deal with the issue.

That means they've been told to work at full capacity all week, but doctors have responded angrily to that call - saying they're already completely stretched.