The number of patients waiting for admission to hospital has jumped again, with 543 people on a trolley or waiting in wards this morning.
With a spell of wintry weather moving in from tonight, there are fears within the health service that next week’s figures could reach new record highs.
Last week, up to 612 patients were forced to wait on trolleys and in wards before being admitted to hospital, but the opening up of additional beds on an emergency basis alleviated the pressure somewhat.
This morning, there were 363 patients on trolleys and 180 waiting on wards, according to the daily count by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
Cork University Hospital, where 46 patients were waiting for admission, had the worst overcrowding, followed by the Mater hospital in Dublin and the Midland Regional Hospital, Tullamore, each with 30.
Separate figures recorded by the HSE show today’s figures are 18 per cent worse than on the same day last year and 39 per cent worse than two years ago. Of the 414 patients the HSE recorded as waiting for admission at 8am, 204 had been waiting for over nine hours.
Under a Health Service Executive target, the number of patients on trolleys on any given day should not exceed 236.
