Patient safety at risk in some hospitals due to overcrowding, union warns

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has called for the HSE to take urgent action to reduce the number of patients on trolleys in the west and northwest.

The union said 458 patients were being treated on trolleys, chairs or other inappropriate bed spaces on Wednesday morning, with 155 patients on trolleys in the west and northwest.

Colm Porter, the INMO's assistant director of industrial relations for the western region, said the number of patients being treated on trolleys in the west over the last month was "alarming" and the situation was becoming "increasingly unsafe" for patients and staff.

"Nurses and midwives in University Hospital Galway, Mayo University Hospital, Sligo University Hospital and Letterkenny University Hospital are facing into yet another winter where they are going to be left in impossible and often dangerous care environments. We know that overcrowding of this nature has significant impacts on the long-term health outcomes of any patient that spends more than six hours on a trolley.

"HSE West and North-West must outline precisely how they are going to radically reduce persistent and dangerous overcrowding in the region. Our members are reporting that significant overcrowding coupled with unmet recruitment and retention targets are making it impossible to provide safe care to those who need it most.

"All barriers to providing safe care in the west must be removed. The HSE must listen to their frontline staff when they advise of these high risk and dangerous situations arising from inadequate staffing and inappropriate working environments."