The HSE has published its plan for tackling the overcrowding crisis in hospitals around the country this winter.
HSE National Director of Acute Operations Liam Woods said the measures announced would have an impact.
The Winter Plan is supported by €26 million in extra funding that was previously announced.
Extra beds, greater access to Fair Deal nursing home places, home care, transitional care and aids and appliances are provided for.
The plan will seek to ensure timely hospital discharge and reduce congestion in emergency departments over the winter period, which usually runs up to the end of March.
It provides for extra medical, nursing, therapies support, pharmacy and laboratory staff, to improve patient experience time.
Mr Woods said that no extra acute beds are being opened specifically as part of the plan and extra staff are not being appointed as part of the acute capacity element of the plan.
The Full Capacity Protocol has been implemented at Letterkenny University Hospital several times in recent weeks with the Hospital management saying they had “admitted a significant number of ill patients, many of whom remain in the ED, awaiting a bed”.
Donegal TD Pearse Doherty said there is a recruitment ban in the HSE, which is “crushing” the health service and resulting in the closure of hospital beds.
Speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil, Mr Doherty said that, in August, 1,300 nursing and midwifery posts were vacant and unfilled.
