A total of 422 patients are on trolleys awaiting admission to wards in Irish hospitals, the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) claimed today.
Nurses from the Mid West region said they were struggling to maintain a safe level of care to patients attending the A&E Department at Limerick Regional Hospital and Ennis General Hospital.
The INO claimed that 32 patients were on trolleys awaiting admission this morning to wards in Limerick and nine in Ennis. There were also 12 patients in the day ward in Ennis awaiting admission, according to industrial relations officer Mary Fogarty.
In Dublin, 50 patients are on trolleys in Tallaght hospital, 25 at the Mater, and 23 in Beaumont.
Elsewhere, 22 people lie on trolleys in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda; 18 in University College Hospital Cork; and 17 in Cavan.
"Pronouncements by the HSE earlier this year that A&E overcrowding is improving were grossly misleading," said Ms Fogarty.
"Our members working in the A&E departments in the Mid West have never experienced this level of overcrowding on such a sustained basis, and a radical approach to dealing with it is urgently needed."
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey said that solving the overcrowding problem was the key to improving hospital hygiene.
In Co Kerry, nurses at Kerry General Hospital are balloting on industrial action amid higher than usual levels of sick leave among staff.
A spokeswoman for the HSE Southern Area said that up to 32 days are lost due to illness among the hospital's 450 or so nursing staff each month. In recent days, however, there has been a higher than normal level of illness among nursing staff, she added.
Hospital management have reacted with a number of measures such as deferring career breaks and the granting of flexible working time.
Speaking to ireland.com, INO industrial relations officer Michael Dineen said the hospital needed to hire at least 80 more nurses and that, if a high level of sick leave existed, it was due to exhaustion.
The results of the ballot on a work to rule will be known on Thursday night.