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02 Nov 2025
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02 Nov 2025
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Naas hospital
Some 382 people had no bed after being admitted to Naas hospital through the accident and emergency department last month.
This is one of the highest ever figures recorded for the month of May at the facility, which serves west Wicklow as well as County Kildare.
According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, which began recording overcrowding figures at public hospitals in 2006, only May 2019 and May 2011 saw more patients on trolleys.
The figures for these months were 479 and 524 respectively.
At Portlaoise hospital there were a total of 98 people on trolleys last month and no figure was immediately available for Tullamore Hospital.
Once again University Hospital Limerick saw the worst overcrowding with 1857 patients for the month followed by Cork University Hospital (1310), University Hospital Galway (896), Sligo University Hospital (751) and Tallaght University Hospital (704).
Nationally some 11,856 patients were admitted without a bed being immediately available and this included 300 children.
INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “The number of patients we have seen on trolleys in the month of May are higher than January 2023, when we saw the worst levels of daily hospital overcrowding since the INMO began counting trolleys. This type of overcrowding at the beginning of summer must be immediately addressed to prevent an even more chaotic winter.
“Nurses are working in a system that has normalised over 500 people a day on trolleys. They have had little to no reprieve from overcrowding. Our members are reporting high levels of burnout and their intention to leave their current work area is higher than it has ever been.”
Calling for a “laser-like focus from the government and the HSE Ms Ní Sheaghdha added: “The measures we seek are proper planning of the cancellation of non-urgent elective surgery in line with public health projections; pre-arranged agreements with private acute hospitals to provide non-urgent elective surgery; and bespoke retention and recruitment initiatives to be implemented now to ensure staffing for additional capacity that is definitely going to be needed.”
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