Trolley numbers fall to near record lows at St Luke’s Hospital

By COLIN BARTLEY

THE number of patients waiting on trolleys in St Luke’s General Hospital has plummeted to near record lows, new figures reveal.

St Luke’s recorded one of the lowest figures for patients waiting on trolleys at any of the 38 hospitals in the country where the data is gathered from, over the last month.

Just 74 patients were recorded on trolleys in St Luke’s in June according to the latest figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s (INMO) ‘TrolleyWatch’ report.

This figure represents a 72% decrease in the number of patients waiting on trolleys at our local hospital in June, from the 256 patients recorded in May.

There is a similar story with the annual figure, which saw a 68% fall off from June 2018 to June 2019, from 232 patients on trolleys this time last year, to 74 last month.

Nationally, there was a decrease of nearly 20% month-on-month in patients on trolleys, down to 7,392 from 9,015 patients the previous month.