THE IRISH ASSOCIATION for Emergency Medicine says it is alarmed at the 700 per cent increase over the past three years in the number of sick children awaiting a hospital bed.

It says that paediatric emergency department (PED) overcrowding has reached “historically high and dangerous levels”, warning that the issue needs immediate attention.

The organisation said that while emergency department overcrowding is generally perceived to be an problem that almost exclusively affects older patients, the quality of care for children is also being compromised by hospital overcrowding.

The IAEM says that PED overcrowding poses “unique challenges” because it is neither ethically acceptable or physically possible to board children and their parents on hospital corridors.

The problem is more seasonal than for adults, according to the organisation, and one of the main difficulties is the lack of available isolation rooms suitable for accommodation children with infectious diseases. Instead, these children must wait in the PED for an isolation room.

According to figures outlined by the IAEM, the number of children who receive their complete episode of care in the PED is eight times higher than it was in 2008 because children are not able to access a hospital bed and are instead being kept in the emergency department.

It also says that children are “not infrequently” spending longer than 12 hours on a trolley while waiting for a bed.

The IAEM recommends reopening extra hospital beds for children for the short but predictable winter period where demand increases for the hospital care of children with infectious diseases.

It also suggests regularly incorporating performance measures from PEDs into national data, and considering PEDs when developing national solutions to emergency department overcrowding.