The issue of overcrowding in hospitals across the country continues to raise its ugly head, week after week.
The General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization (INMO), Liam Doran, has stated that patients are ‘suffering in silence’ Mullingar Hospital, and also that staff there are ‘overworked’.
Mr. Doran joined around 30 nurses and midwives at a demonstration at the facility this afternoon, to highlight these and other issues, such as staff shortages.
Thirty patients were in hospital trolleys in the emergency department or in full wards in Mullingar today.
A veteran A&E nurse spoke of the grossly inappropriate conditions herself and her colleagues are forced to work in, day and night: “You cannot move, health and safety just goes out the window. There are trolleys blocking corridors, blocking fire escape routes and fire hydrants.
“There are people everywhere, you have families standing at the end of a trolley, they don’t even have chairs to sit down beside their loved ones, and they can be there from anything from 24 to 48 hours’