Two hospitals in the southeast of the country are continuing to urge the public to stay away due to large numbers of patients in emergency departments (ED).
A surge of people attending the ED at St Luke’s General Hospital in Co Kilkenny, with 54 patients currently waiting to be seen, has prompted the appeal to ask people to avoid the hospital if possible.
A spokesperson for the hospital said they will to deal with medical emergencies but have asked all patients where appropriate to consult their GP before attending.
Meanwhile at Wexford General Hospital, 40 patients have been waiting in the ED due in large part to an increase in viral infections.
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Paul Kelly, a hospital consultant at Wexford General Hospital, said staff at the hospital had never “seen it as bad”.
This is the 16th time this year that hospital management have had to issue a plea to members of the public to avoid attending the ED unless absolutely necessary.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) have called on management in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) to cancel all non-urgent elective care and to prioritise the needs of the emergency department patients.
The organisation said 94 patients were without a bed in the hospital on Tuesday.
INMO, assistant director of industrial relations, Mary Fogarty said members were reporting “serious delays” in triage and assessment of patients in the ED.
“Hospital management must abide by their public statements and actually curtail non-urgent elective care immediately,” she said.
“At a time when everyone else in the country is winding down, it is only getting worse for INMO members and other healthcare workers in UHL. Management must take the extraordinary steps they have publicly promised.”
On Monday, the number of patients on trolleys in Irish hospitals equalled the all-time record, as the health service suffers a pre-Christmas onslaught from winter respiratory viruses.
There were 760 admitted patients waiting for a bed on Monday, according to the daily TrolleyWatch count by the INMO.
This equals the 760 trolley figure recorded on January 6th, 2020, shortly before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Overcrowding in both adult and children hospitals is being driven by high levels of respiratory viruses, with flu and Covid in resurgence and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) remaining at near record levels. All the signs point to the health service coming under extreme pressure in the post-Christmas period.