‘Disastrously overcrowded’: Patients on trolleys in Kilkenny increase during record February nationwide

Over 400 patients were treated without a bed at St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny this month, a period which also saw the highest level of February overcrowding on record in hospitals nationwide.

The national figure of 11,595 was a decrease from January’s 13,077, but despite this, the number of patients treated on trolleys at St Luke’s increased by over 25% from 323 to 405 from month to month.

The current figure is the highest in St Luke’s during February since 2022, when 519 people were without a bed and is more than three times greater than last February’s number of 117.

The greatest total trolley patients in the country during the month was at University Hospital Limerick with 1,978 followed by University Hospital Galway at 1,263.

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Speaking about the record-breaking figures, Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, said: “Our members predicted that the recruitment embargo represented by the HSE’s Pay and Numbers Strategy would only worsen the situation in already disastrously overcrowded hospitals.”

“Sadly, they have been proven right, as we are seeing here the results of a failure to adequately staff services in both hospitals and community services. This is a truly alarming situation, and one that can only be addressed with a serious commitment to safe staffing across the health service.”

“There is simply no care without staffing, and any additional bed capacity in the health service needs to be matched with the staffing numbers prescribed in the safe staffing framework,” she concluded.

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