20 patients on trollies at LGH as INMO calls for urgent government action

 

Nurses want all elective and routine admissions cancelled for a fortnight as record numbers of patients wait on trolleys in hospital.
As of today, 563 patients are waiting for a bed in emergency departments around the country, 20 of them at Letterkenny General Hospital.
Management at Letterkenny General Hospital say the spike in the level of activity over the past few days is due both to the number of patients presenting to the hospital and the dependency level of the patients who are presenting or are already in hospital.
According to a statement, there are currently 20 patients on trolleys awaiting admission and the hospital is working strenuously to ensure access to beds.
They say a number of measures that are being pursued in order to ensure that every patient who presents to the hospital is treated in a timely and safe manner.
They include consultant reviews with a view to expediting discharges, twice daily rounds driven by Bed Management meetings and prioritising diagnostics for in-patients.
Escalation beds are being commissioned to accommodate additional patients, and efforts to transfer patients are intensifying, with private nursing homes being considered if insufficient capacity is available in the public system.
Callling the numbers a national emergency, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation wants to see emergency recruitment drives in the UK and Australia.