It’s hard to believe but just Monday night gone, doctors in Cork University Hospital were forced to turn people away as sever overcrowding meant that there wasn’t one single bed available at the medical facility.
Outside, ambulances waited to deliver more patients, and many vehicles remained parked there for many hours.
Shortly after 10.30pm, A&E was so crowded that doctors had no choice but to start sending people home. They had run out of beds, trolleys, and chairs.
Successive ministers have pledged to ‘end’ overcrowding, but all have been wholly unsuccessful in doing so. The situation has become steadily worse over the last few years, and deaths will inevitably occur as a result of this appalling standard of care.
It’s a crying shame that the 30-yr-old Minister for Health Simon Harris wouldn’t finally sort this overcrowding mess out once and for all.