Irish hospital overcrowding unacceptable as INMO boss blasts rising trolley numbers and Limerick hospital overwhelmed
THE issue of overcrowding in Irish hospitals has reared its ugly head once more.
Staff in University Hospital Limerick have blasted bosses after more trolleys were placed on wards and corridors as visiting numbers rise.
On Wednesday July 28, there was 52 patients on trolleys in Limerick, left, despite the hospital gaining more than 110 new beds since January 2021.
The HSE has been accused of “slipping back into old bad habits”.
Writing today, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, the General Secretary, Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, says no patient should ever be waiting for a bed and urges the HSE not to repeat past mistakes.
TROLLEYS IN CORRIDOORS
IT'S 8am in University Hospital Limerick.
Over 50 trolleys line the corridors, each with a patient waiting for a real bed. Nurses and doctors have to walk sideways to walk between patients.
The Covid-19 advice is clear: keep at least 2m apart. But that’s just not possible in a crowded hospital like this.
This is the situation faced by staff and patients at UHL every single day. And while Limerick has the highest figures for overcrowding, it’s the same story in hospitals up and down the country.
For over a year and half, our amazing frontline healthcare workers have battled against Covid-19. They took personal risks, worked beyond their job descriptions, and spent their days in uncomfortable PPE.
OVERCROWDING CRISIS
We represent over 40,000 nurses and midwives and their message is clear. They are seeing Ireland’s hospitals swing from a Covid crisis straight into an overcrowding crisis.
Overcrowding is unacceptable at any time. It makes the workplace dangerous, makes patient care worse, and is no way to run a hospital. But in a pandemic — it is far worse.
There can be no social distancing or infection control in a corridor filled with patients. Overcrowded hospitals are a problem which our health service has been facing for decades.
As we hopefully move out of the Covid pandemic, what can be done to make sure we don’t repeat past mistakes?
The first thing that needs to happen is a statement of intent. The HSE and Minister for Health need to make clear that the only acceptable number for patients without proper beds is ZERO.
The HSE said at the start of the pandemic that there would be no tolerance for overcrowding — that commitment needs to get a laser focus and be made a serious goal for the health service.
TIMES ARE CHANGING
To do that, we need to get staffing right. In Ireland, we often set ward staffing levels based on history, so you’d have eight nurses “because that’s what we’ve always had”.
That is changing. Thanks to our national strike in 2019, more and more hospitals are setting staffing levels based on science. They look at what patients actually need and set the staffing levels using a formula.
We know this system saves money and saves lives — we now need the HSE to roll it out to each and every part of our health service. To get the staff to do that, we need to reward them properly.
This means making sure pay and conditions for healthcare workers are world class. And it means properly recognising the brilliant work they have done during the pandemic.
Frontline healthcare workers in Northern Ireland, Germany, France, Hungary and elsewhere have all been rewarded with bonuses or extra leave for their Covid efforts.
Healthcare workers in Ireland have got nothing — despite government promises. The INMO and other health unions have had to take this issue to the Workplace Relations Commission and on to the Labour Court.
Finally, we can avoid a return to mass overcrowding by fixing the model of our health service.
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We have a messy model, with an unclear mix of public and private care.
All political parties have signed up to a policy called Slaintecare, which would move Ireland to a universal health care system – like the NHS.
Read more on the Irish Sun
This government need to put those reforms in place rapidly. Success would be simple to judge. You get care when you need it.
Tests would be rapid. And this would be for everyone — not just those who can pay for private care. Overcrowding should never be accepted in a modern country like ours.
