CUH consultant warns: 'Death toll from A&E overcrowding is more than 300 a year'

A CONSULTANT in emergency medicine at Cork University Hospital says the death toll from overcrowding in Irish hospitals is more than 300 a year.
Dr Conor Deasy was responding to new figures that revealed 834 people were waiting on trolleys at CUH last month, the worst June on record.
Using international figures on the impact of overcrowding in A&Es, Dr Deasy said: “We can say that the death toll due to overcrowding in emergency departments in Ireland is about 300 excess deaths per year."

He directly appealed to Cork's political leaders to intervene, saying: “Our Tánaiste Simon Coveney and the leader of the opposition Michael Martin need to step in and represent their constituents by increasing bed capacity in the system here.
“They need to provide the electorate with evidence that politicians, the Department of Health, and HSE are not just fiddling while Rome burns. Testimony at election time will be from the corridors of our emergency departments (EDs).”