Claims that a woman suffering from pneumonia had to spend four days on a dentist's chair at Wexford General Hospital due to a shortage of beds were last night dismissed by the Health Service Executive (HSE) for the south-east region.
The authority insisted there were no dentists' chairs in the hospital.
However, the man who made the claim, Mr George Lawlor, a Labour Party councillor, said when he rechecked his facts with the woman's family he was informed she had to spend four days, her entire period in hospital, on "the equivalent of a dentist's chair. It wasn't a trolley or a bed".
The HSE said the hospital was seeking to establish the facts in the case. It added that the hospital was exceptionally busy. "However, there has not been an issue with sourcing trolleys when they have been required and the hospital does not treat inpatients on chairs," it added.
Mr Lawlor described the way in which the 32-year-old mother of three, who for two days was suspected of having meningitis, as a scandal. "This incident displays how utterly appalling conditions have become at the hospital," he said.
Two consultants at the hospital resigned from the management team last week in protest at the failure to address overcrowding at the hospital's A&E unit. The Department of Health promised it 19 extra beds but they still have not been provided.
There were again 18 patients on trolleys at the hospital yesterday, according to the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO), which has not ruled out industrial action if new measures agreed at a meeting of the A&E Forum, chaired by the LRC, to solve overcrowding in A&Es across the State are not implemented.
The measures include making sure elective surgery is cancelled when patients are on trolleys, allowing nursing shift leaders to employ additional nursing staff when necessary, and ensuring hospitals have efficient discharge policies in place.
The INO will now meet the chief officers of the former health boards and the chief executives of the voluntary hospitals to identify the site-specific measures that can be put in place.
"We have advised the HSEA that we will view the non-implementation of this agreement as a breach of Sustaining Progress and in such a situation we will not rule out the taking of industrial action," Mr David Hughes, INO general secretary, said.
The overall number of patients on trolleys in A&E units nationwide rose again yesterday to 285, the INO said.
Meanwhile, at Ennis General Hospital, INO nurses will begin working under protest tomorrow following what the union claimed was the failure of management to meet and make progress on issues around poor staffing levels raised last July.