The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has made calls for more to be done to help protect their patients, on international Patient Safety Day.
The call comes as Letterkenny University Hospital was one of the most overcrowded hospitals in the country throughout the month of August.
A total of 539 patients were on trolleys or without a bed at LUH last month, the fifth-highest total nationwide.
Elsewhere in the North West, Sligo University Hospital was the fourth-most overcrowded with 737 patients without a bed in August.
IMMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said in a statement:
“World Patient Safety Day allows us to reflect on the conditions our patients are being treated in. Irish nurses and midwives provide exemplary care but the conditions in which they are expected to carry out their practise are getting worse with each passing day with the number of patients on trolleys in wards right across hospitals increases”.
“Nurses and midwives are facing into yet another winter where they are left in impossible and often dangerous care environments. We know that overcrowding of this nature has significant impacts on the long-term health outcomes of any patient that spends more than six hours on a trolley”
“At tomorrow’s meeting of the Emergency Department Taskforce, the HSE and individual hospital groups must bring something new to the table to ensure that patient safety is enhanced over the coming months”
“Our members are reporting that significant overcrowding coupled with unmet recruitment and retention targets are making it impossible to provide safe care to those who need it most”
“Year-on-year we are having the same conversations about the very real impact hospital overcrowding is having on patient safety. Senior decision-makers must prioritise the de-escalation of overcrowded areas and remove these very real barriers to providing safe care to patients in our hospitals”.
