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MORE THAN 700 patients in hospitals are waiting to be given a bed for the second day in a row, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
The INMO Trolley Watch recorded 702 patients waiting for beds in hospitals today, after seeing 747 waiting yesterday.
It marks a significant jump since last week, when the figure ranged between 484 and 571.
As of today, 520 patients are waiting in emergency departments and a further 182 are elsewhere in wards, according to Trolley Watch.
INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha has called for a meeting with the HSE and Minister for Health to discuss measures that can be taken to protect patients and staff.
She said the trolley figures are “truly shocking” and “should be a wake up call to the Health Service Executive, the Government and individual hospital groups that extraordinary steps must be taken to ensure that we are not replicating the same record breaking trolley numbers we saw at the beginning of this year”.
“The HSE must take action in the form of accelerating the use of private hospital beds, the immediate cancellation of all non-urgent elective activity and the introduction of heightened infection control measures in all hospitals,” Ní Sheaghdha said.
“The INMO has been warning that dangerous levels of overcrowding were imminent. There is still time to avoid intolerable levels of overcrowding ahead of Christmas and the New Year if action is taken now.”
The HSE’S Respiratory Virus tracker has recorded 368 cases of people hospitalised this week with RSV.
There are 192 cases of Covid-19 in hospitals and 56 of influenza.
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If you have ever voted FF or FG you have voted for this.
@Keyser Söze: global issue, FF and FG have been poor in many areas, but our issues are mirroring many of Europe’s leading countries including the UK, part of which SF have also failed in.
@Alan B: exactly bring back the matrons and ward sisters, too many chiefs and not enough Indians
@Alan B: Take you mind back to the Naughties when the Country was raging with so called money ( Confetti) FF went building Houses and hotels in the most remote parts of ireland ??
With their so called Brains why did they not give incentives to Build New Hospitals & Schools ?
But No pig headed Bertie Cowan sank the ship
@Paul Fahey: you should head in to A&E in Limerick and explain that to people waiting days to see a doctor.
@Paul Fahey: @Alan B: Every time there was a recession the government of the day took the opportunity to close hospitals. But never reopened them afterwards.
Then they got the brilliant idea to create “centers of excellence”.
This meant elevating certain hospitals to this status, and downgrading all the others. To do this they removed capabilities from those other hospitals and forced people to travel – sometimes inordinately large distances – to these supposed “centers of excellence”.
Then they discovered that they could starve these outlying hospitals – you know, those ones that were actually providing a real service to their communities all these years – of resources, and claim that they were therefore disfunctional.
And use measurements of this disfunction as an excuse to shut them down.
Make no mistake, the problems with our health service can be laid squarely at the feet of government (both elected and permanent).
@Keyser Söze: FG are awesome
@Paul Fahey: rubbish, doesn’t happen in most of Europe, just here and UK
@Paul Fahey: Key point here is that Ireland has 2.9 hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants.. one of the lowest in Europe.. there i fixed your comment for you.. context is Important I’m sure you’ll agree
@Alan B: sorry but Leo as minister for health said it’s a good thing to have a stretched health service as it ensured productivity and quick patient turnaround times.
@Keyser Söze: A naive comment.
@Keyser Söze: Trade unions often distort the facts. I know 3 people who got beds in the biggest hospital in Cork- having spent less than 2 hrs on trolleys. The care they received from all staff was superlative.
@Alan B: I suppose Alan it started with the constant cut backs on health minute their is a money crisis our health that they are all worried about gets cut like just recently no money for new drugs staff embargo
@Harry Cock: well said Harry, we have the best health system in the world all thanks to FG :)
In 2000 there were 184 hospitals in Ireland. By 2020 this went down to 86 hospitals. Available beds also went from 23000 beds, to around 14000 beds in the same period. Although staffing levels have actually increased in that same period. So we have the staff, but not the actual beds due to government cuts over the last 2 decades.
@mark daly: and a global culture of spending less time in hospital, more recovery time at home. This is supported by the huge increase in day surgeries.
@mark daly: streamlining services around centres of excellence is best practice in health care. You won’t get many doctors wanting to work in county hospitals either.
@Paul Fahey: that has nothing to do with this. Recovery at home only starts after you have actually seen a doctor.
@eoin fitzpatrick: These so-called “centers of excellence” seem to exist for the benefit of the administrators, not the patient.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: they exist for the benefit of both
@eoin fitzpatrick: The evidence of our health service would suggest otherwise.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: you mean like how our life expectancy and health in general has improved since the centralisation of hospitals?
@eoin fitzpatrick: Life expectancy increased enormously long before hospitals were centralised.
As you well know.
What has increased with centralisation are trolly counts.
And waiting lists.
And the time getting people into emergency care after accidents or other emergencies.
Shocking news,who would of expected that. ..I remember lying under a stairs for a week or so with collapsed lungs,back in 96. Reporters were in,it was all over the news,Mary Harney declared an emergency..nearly 30 years later and its still going on. Nothing will ever change
Definition of madness: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Government take note!
It’s all so simple, isn’t it?
@Ciaran Bolger, yes you are right,.it doesn’t happen in most of Europe as they have insurance models rather than have the government involved like here and the UK. Our plan in Ireland is slaintecare, which is following the UK’s NHS system that’s falling apart in lots of areas.
We should follow the European models as that would benefit the public, can’t be having that though as it would upset too many vested interests.
@The next small thing: The only reason the NHS has difficulties is because of Tory underfunding.
Private insurance models fail disasterously.
Look to the US as an example of how not to do healthcare.
Each European country has its own system but most, if not all, provide a public health service.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: I’m talking more of the German or Dutch models than the US, which I would not be in favour of. We’re just throwing money at it here without any discernible improvement so something has to change and change drastically.
@The next small thing: The core problem is not within the health service itself.
The core problem is the cost of doing business here.
Which is exorbitant because of the cost of rent, and property generally.
That is an underlying cost borne by all of us.
If rents were not so high, wages would not need to be so high.
Insurance would not need to be so high.
And so on.
Rent factors into everything we buy, from food to machinery. From medicines to education.
So the poor old Greens. Having ruined agriculture they have now ruined the health service. What next, the economy?
@Pato: how is it the greens fault lol? A minority in a coalition government for a couple of years and you loopers blame them for everything.
@eoin fitzpatrick: Ah, so The Greens no longer adhere to the collective responsibilty of government then?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: All the FFG heads are blaming the Greens for the failure of this government yet there are 73 FFG TD’s in government, lol.
No of hosp beds massively down over last 20 years, no of staff not down, problem with adding beds is lack of medical staff to service them, but staff no’s are still there from when there were many more beds in the system, seems like medical staff no’s are down and mngmnt and admin staff no’s are up, could be wrong but seems like the only logical answer. Seems like we need to get rid of large amount of admin staff/mbgmnt and replace them with medical staff. Might have a chance of enticing Irish trained medical staff if we payed them what they are worth, excluding consultants, they seem to have managed to get payed very genourously.
FG/FF/Greens wining again.
If people eat less , drank less, smoked less, there would be a lot less pressure on the system. Just back from holidays in Lanzarote. From talking to Irish people on holidays, most of them eat, drink and smoke from morning to night , including breakfast and hire out mobility scooters. It is exactly the same as home. And then show up at one of our hospitals with high blood pressure and diabetes, expecting the hospital system to fix them up. Ireland and England have the highest rates of obesity in Europe if not the world, and surprise surprise, their public health care systems are under pressure. Ireland spends 23 Billion of tax payers money and the UK sonewhere north of 182 Billion
@Peter Byrne: You’re talking about personal and societal responsibility which is not the Irish way, unfortunately.
@Peter Byrne:so ur blaming the fact we have a non functioning health service on people who cant get actual care?…u do realise even if peoeple did everything u said it doesnt still answer the question of where the 24 billion we give the hse every year goes?. And as for the whole obesity thing, the only obesity I see in the hse is the wages we pay like to the former chief exec who got 420k a year plus a state car and driver to do nothing but PR events during covid instead of doing his job…..20 years of overpaid and underworked management and paper pushers in another non accountability state quango is also causing this. RTE should give ya a view of what that looks like
sadly in all the hospitals affected,the beds/ trollies are blocking fire exits…how does the Fire Officers certify and pass these places as safe?
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