The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation is calling for ‘immediate and serious intervention’ from the Irish government as new figures show 931 patients are on trolleys waiting for a bed in hospitals nationwide.
This marks the highest number of patients that have been without a hospital bed since the trade union began counting trolleys back in 2006.
There are 767 patients on trolleys in emergency departments and 164 on trolleys elsewhere in hospitals.
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Figures also show there are 26 children who have been admitted to the hospital without a bed.
Speaking about the urgent action that is needed, INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “Today’s numbers require immediate and serious intervention from the government.”
She said there is no time to hear from those “at the top” explaining how we got into this situation, but rather, “we need to know what exactly the plan is from today until the end of February” to solve the issue.
Earlier today, the HSE warned the public to avoid Emergency Departments unless absolutely necessary and recommended that people try all other alternatives before resorting to the hospital.
In response to this, Ní Sheaghdha said: “Just telling people to avoid hospitals is not a plan or indeed safe. The public need to know exactly what type of care they can expect over the next six weeks.
“Our members are extremely disillusioned by the current set of circumstances they are working in.
“We are not seeing unsustainable overcrowding confined to a handful of hospitals, each hospital is facing significant overcrowding challenges, a trend which has continued to escalate since late summer”.
As a result of the latest figures, the INMO says: “Our members are treating patients in inhumane and often unsafe conditions”.
The INMO is now calling on the Irish government to bring back certain restrictions that were used during Covid-19 to slow the spread of illnesses this winter.
He said: “We need Government to now make difficult decisions including the return of mandated mask-wearing in congregated settings.
“We know that one of the main pressure points in our health service is the rise of respiratory infections. Asking people to return to mask-wearing in busy congregated settings is a simple measure”.
Ms. Ní Sheaghdha then advised that: “Over the coming days, we need to see real tangible plans and decisions at a national level about the ensured safety in our acute public hospitals.”
The government’s winter plan has been described as a “joke” amid calls for Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to outline steps to deal with record trolley numbers.
The Labour Party’s health spokesperson Duncan Smith told the Irish Mirror that asking people not to go to hospital is “not a policy solution” and that the services people have been told to seek help from are also under strain.
He said that the Department of Health’s winter plan has become an “annual joke” as he called on Minister Donnelly to outline plans to deal with the crisis.
Mr Smith said: “Minister Donnelly needs to come and tell us what he is going to do now.
“He has not said a word. It can't just be, ‘stay away from hospitals’. They have to do everything they can.
“If it involves having to bring agency or retired staff back to man phones to give people advice or diagnosis or comfort over the phone that may help someone diagnose a child that might stop them presenting an emergency department.
“These are the emergency hour-by-hour measures that need to be brought in now. We need to be practical and increase resources around out-of-hour GP services.
“Private hospitals have offered resources. That will come at a cost, but we haven’t reached peak flu season yet and we need to make sure that the HSE are leveraging every single offer they can to help alleviate the crisis.”
There have also been calls for the Oireachtas Health Committee to be reconvened as soon as possible so that the crisis can be discussed with Minister Donnelly and the HSE.
Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson David Cullinane told The Mirror that he wrote to the committee’s chairman Sean Crowe on Sunday seeking a meeting. The Dáil is not set to reconvene until January 18, but there have been calls for a meeting sooner than this.
Mr Culliane said that the health service has found itself in the “eye of a storm” and that the “warning signs” have been evident since last summer.
He explained: “When you talk to people now who are going into hospitals, whether they’re consultants or nurses or doctors or healthcare assistants, they’re saying it's as bad if not worse, as they've ever seen it.
“They don't have enough beds, they don't have the staff. they don't have the capacity to deal with the surge in demand. We're seeing again, the cancellation of elective procedures.
“We’re in the eye of a perfect storm that was entirely predictable and the winter plan clearly is failing.”
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