University College Hospital Galway had to cancel all elective surgery yesterday and may have to do so again today after what was its busiest day in Accident and Emergency in six months. Olivia Kelly reports.
Beds were found for all patients admitted to the hospital but no planned surgery could be performed because of the volume of emergency cases. A hospital spokeswoman said it was likely elective operations would be cancelled again today.
This follows the disclosure by the Irish Nurses' Organisation that some 117 patients were waiting on trolleys for admission to four major Dublin hospitals yesterday, even though there are more than 200 closed hospital beds in the eastern regional area.
The overcrowding in Dublin's major teaching hospitals was "critical and wholly unacceptable", INO general secretary Mr Liam Doran said, and was unlikely to show any improvement before the end of February.
"It now appears that overcrowding is a constant feature of our capital city's A&E services and this is unacceptable to the INO and to the patients that our members care for."
Some 36 patients were waiting on trolleys and chairs for admission to Beaumont Hospital yesterday morning, one of whom had been brought into accident and emergency on Sunday afternoon.
A spokesman for the hospital said beds were found for four patients during the day. However, the numbers waiting were likely to be back up again this morning due to overnight admissions.
"It's not a great figure. We would see it as particularly high, given that there is not a specific illness at the root of it at the moment," he said.
Some 16 of Beaumont's 650 beds were closed yesterday. A shortage of nurses meant the hospital could not run at full capacity, the spokesman said.
The James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown had 21 people on trolleys yesterday morning. The Mater Hospital had 29 people awaiting admission and Tallaght Hospital had 31.
The Eastern Regional Health Authority has instructed the six Dublin teaching hospitals, including St Vincent's Hospital and St James's Hospital, to open their 89 closed beds, a spokeswoman said last night. A further 126 long-stay beds closed last year are being reopened, she said.