{"id":668244,"date":"2026-09-02T06:18:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T06:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668244\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T06:18:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T06:18:19","slug":"close-to-10000-patients-on-trolleys-in-august-across-irish-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/668244\/","title":{"rendered":"Close to 10,000 patients on trolleys in August across Irish hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>IRISH HOSPITALS RECORDED their worst-ever August for overcrowding last month with close to 10,000 patients on trolleys.<\/p>\n<p>The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) reported that over 9,945 patients were admitted without beds throughout the month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>University Hospital Limerick (UHL) was by far the hospital with the worst overcrowding last month \u2013 a total of 1,784 patients were on trolleys.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It was followed by Cork University Hospital, which had 830 patients on trolleys; Letterkenny University Hospital with 730 patients; St Vincent\u2019s University Hospital with 728 patients; and Sligo University Hospital with 710 patients.<\/p>\n<p>The union\u2019s general secretary Phil N\u00ed Sheaghdha said with this overcrowding, patients\u2019 dignity is being compromised.<\/p>\n<p>N\u00ed Sheaghdha, who is also president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said the trolley figures are the \u201cdirect result\u201d of government decisions to cap and restrict recruitment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are at the point where senior leaders and clinicians in the HSE are refusing to stand behind the current state of the health service,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>An \u201calarmingly high\u201d assault rate against hospital staff, increasing staff shortages, and a decline in conditions for patients can only be addressed by a reversal in staffing and recruitment policies and the full implementation of the safe staffing framework, she continued.<\/p>\n<p>The organisation\u2019s head said members are worried about the winter ahead, as other jurisdictions report record levels of flu hospitalisations and flu presentations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will not be equipped or staffed to deal with this scenario here in Ireland,\u201d N\u00ed Sheaghdha said, adding that it is imperative those on the frontline are listened to.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Health has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IRISH HOSPITALS RECORDED their worst-ever August for overcrowding last month with close to 10,000 patients on trolleys. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,135,7133,60,19,70858,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,282182,282183],"class_list":["post-668244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-hospital-overcrowding","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-inmo","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-trolley-crisis","tag-worst-ever"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117199995345307791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}