2,435 patients left waiting on trolleys in Navan Hospital in 2017

The number of patients waiting on trolleys in Our Lady's Hospital Navan rocketed from 595 in 2016 to 2,435 in 2017 according to figures released by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO)

The INMO annual Trolley and Ward Watch figures also suggest any improvement to hospital overcrowding will be highly unlikely in 2018 unless, drastic and innovative steps taken immediately
 
For the second year running, heading into the final weekend of the year, over 300 patients were recorded waiting on trolleys or on additional beds in wards of the country's busiest hospitals.

Smaller hospitals such as Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan showed increases from 595 in 2016 to 2435 in 2017 and Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe recorded 1,569 trolley figures compared with 892 in 2016.

University Hospital Limerick recorded the highest annual number of 8,869; Cork University Hospital and University Hospital Galway recording 6,815 and 6,563 respectively; The Mater University Hospital in Dublin was the capital’s most overcrowded hospital with 5,238 patients on trolleys during 2017; and
 
Reacting to the level of overcrowding, Phil Ni Sheaghdha, the newly appointed General Secretary of the INMO, called on the HSE to explain how the predictable increases in Emergency Department (ED) admissions remain outside of the scope of hospitals to manage and control:

“Overcrowding in late December and early January is getting worse. Despite investment in winter plans, smaller hospitals are now severely overcrowded which is manifestly unsafe and leads to higher cross infection and poorer outcomes for patients. Nursing staff, constantly working in this high pressure, unsafe environment, cannot be expected to put up with this obvious neglect of duty of care to them and the patients they try to care for any longer. It appears to me, that staff and patients, on the front line, were abandoned while the system shutdown for Christmas and the New Year.”
Trolley Watch figures for Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda showed almost a 50% drop in patients waiting on trolleys (2,791 down from 5,608 in 2016)