Long waiting times and overcrowding in hospitals are expected during “this difficult winter”, the Irish Organization of Nurses and Midwives has warned, with 612 hospitalized patients waiting for a hospital bed this morning.
This is followed by a statement from University Hospital Limerick over the weekend, in which the hospital advises people not to go to the emergency room unless absolutely necessary due to the high volume of patients who have turned up.
Similar statements have been made by St James’s Hospital and Tallaght University Hospital in Dublin in recent weeks.
According to INMO, there were 509 patients admitted to the emergency room waiting for a bed, while 103 are in wards elsewhere.
The worst affected hospital is University Hospital Limerick, where there are 89 people waiting for a bed, 71 waiting at University Hospital Cork and 43 at University Hospital Sligo.
INMO said there were 15 patients waiting for a hospital bed at Children’s Health Ireland Crumlin and 13 waiting for CHI Temple Street.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said hospitals are facing a predictable winter surge, adding: “we have very poor turnaround in our hospitals, we’ve had overcrowded hospitals since very early on in the summer this year. I think the HSE is very aware, as is the Department of Health, and the winter plan confirms, that this winter is going to be worse than any other and that’s the planning that’s now in place,” reported RTE.
According to RTE, Ms Ní Sheaghdha said that INMO calls for advance planning and realistic measures “to make sure we can discharge people from hospital.”
She said there are currently more than 650 people in the hospital who don’t need to be there, but because of the lack of community beds there is nowhere to go and this is something that happens every year.
Ms. Ní Sheaghdha said that there are two main problems facing the hospital system, firstly, that out-of-hours GP services need to be increased and attention needs to be paid to the number of referrals for GP services.
She said that her members are reporting an increase in referrals and that not all of these people need to go to emergency departments.
Second, she said, there is an increase in resignations that need to be addressed, saying “these departments are becoming really difficult to work in and we’re getting increasingly worried about the number of resignations among nurses particularly,” reports RTE.
Ms. Ní Sheaghdha said that this winter will be very difficult and the patients caring for him need to know how long they will have to wait.
“Attending these hospitals right across the country is going to mean you’re going be waiting for very long periods of time to be seen and then you’re also going to have a wait on a trolley,” she said, reported RTE.
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