1,800 patients treated without a bed at Kilkenny hospital this year: report
Some 1,800 patients were treated at St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny without a bed so far this year, a new report reveals.
The survey by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) found a total of 100,111 patients were left waiting for a bed in emergency departments and other wards in hospital wards across the country from January until October 24.
Overall, St Luke’s had the 17th highest levels of patients being treated without a bed of all the country’s hospitals.
University Hospital Limerick (18,944 patients) recorded the highest trolley count in the country, followed by Cork University Hospital (10,923), University Hospital Galway (9,388), Sligo University Hospital (6,321) and St. Vincent’s University Hospital (5,664).
It comes as the INMO joined other unions in hospital protests – including St Luke’s Hospital – over the past month, calling for an end to the obstacles to recruitment laid out in the HSE’s 2024 Pay and Numbers Strategy.
The union has also commenced a ballot for industrial action in response to inadequate staffing levels.
Commenting on the survey, INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “Sadly, this figure comes as no surprise today. We have been warning for months that the chronic problems in the health service will only be exacerbated by the suppression of posts and the implementation of recruitment caps, and unfortunately we have once again been proven right.
“The HSE and the department of health make repeated commitments to making the health service safer, but this is directly contradicted by their actions in terms of this recruitment policy.”
Ní Sheaghdha said INMO members “are now constantly scrambling to provide safe care to an increasing number of patients, in environments that are not safely staffed”.
She added: “This often means working long hours without breaks, working extra hours and contending with unmanageable workloads in highly stressful environments.
“Our members have been pushed to the brink over the last five years and for many of them seeing another annual report of 100,000 patients being treated in inappropriate spaces before we even reach November, is simply unacceptable.”
