Nurses have said that the main regional hospital in the mid west is currently unsafe due to over-crowding across the entire facility.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said that the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick currently had 96 additional in-patients "above the normal capacity of approximately 350 in-patient beds".
The union said the hospital was facing its worst-ever pressure and called on the HSE to implement its major disaster plan for the region. It also urged GPs in the locality to attend the hospital to provide any assistance possible.
It said the hospital was "stretched beyond manageable and safe parameters in terms of the volume of admitted patients requiring medical and nursing care, and available beds and nursing staff to administer safe care".
In a statement the nurses’ union said that in the hospital this morning there were 34 patients on trolleys in the emergency department (three of whom were children), 12 admitted patients on beds in the medical assessment unit, 11 patients on beds in the surgical day ward, 25 on beds in ward 1B where closed beds had re-opened with skeleton staff and 14 patients on extra beds/trolleys around wards.
The union said staff at the hospital could not deliver safe care to such volumes of additional patients without extra personnel.
INMO industrial relations officer, Mary Fogarty said: “In February 2012 this hospital is under the worst pressure ever experienced and, despite the Minister’s assurances of improvements and Special Delivery Unit recommendations, the situation is deteriorating further."
Ms Fogarty said additional nursing staff and acute in-patient beds must be prioritised to address the crisis and "to prevent a major unavoidable incident at the Mid West Regional Hospital".
"It is incomprehensible that a hospital is allowed to reach such levels of over capacity which undoubtedly lead to unsafe practices, low standards of care, mistakes and neglect of ill patients."
The union called on the HSE to implement the major disaster plan and also called on GPs in the region to attend the hospital to provide any assistance they may be able to offer.
A spokesman for the HSE in Limerick said that the hospital was facing pressures. He said that it had appealed to members of the public not to attend the Mid Western Regional Hospital except in cases of genuine emergency.
