76 patients were left waiting for beds in Cork University Hospital (CUH) yesterday morning, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation INMO Trolley Watch figures.

This figure includes 61 patients in the emergency department at CUH.

Colm Porter, spokesperson for the Cork branch of the INMO said the number of patients waiting for beds in the CUH has increased ‘massively’ again. “Over the last while we have seen the figures creep up massively again, particularly in CUH. There is no one reason for the spike. There is just a lot of pressure on the system,” he said.

Mr Porter said the big issue in the Cork area is the lack of bed capacity to meet the demand. “The big issue is bed capacity for the Cork area. There is not enough bed capacity to meet the demand. There are not enough beds in CUH which is the first problem and secondly, there is not enough bed capacity within the community either. That has to be sorted out. In the immediate term, they need to be utilising any kind of private bed space where they can.” 

“It is a desperately tough situation for the nurses working in both the CUH and the Mercy University Hospital,” said Mr Porter. 

“There is a worrying practice in CUH whereby they are moving trolleys into wards. We already have issues where wards are at 100% capacity and more trolleys are being placed in there and they are being cared for by nursing staff that are understaffed in many cases.” 

Nationally 627 admitted patients were waiting for beds yesterday with 494 patients waiting in the emergency department, while 133 were in wards elsewhere in the hospital.

Separately on Monday, March 13 Mercy University Hospital (MUH) emergency department (ED) said they were experiencing high demand for its services due to a “marked increase” in attendances of acutely ill patients and a “surge” in Covid-19 and winter vomiting presentations.