Health chiefs earlier admitted to concerns that rising cases of respiratory illnesses threaten to overwhelm the health system this winter.
Illnesses such as Covid-10, the flu, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) - which usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms – have caused the HSE to warn hospitals to ensure there is "robust" planning to manage high trolley numbers.
Health Service Executive (HSE) chief operations officer Damien McCallion revealed that part of the problem was a recent five per cent surge in attendance at emergency departments.
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He said: "That might not seem like a lot, but in a system that is at max capacity coming out of a pandemic and also trying to address waiting list pressures, that is a significant increase in patients.”
Over 10,000 patients, including 393 children, many with respiratory illnesses, were stuck on trolleys last month as there wasn’t a bed for them.
Senior hospital consultant, Dr Fergal Hickey, accused the HSE of being overwhelmed by the same problems every winter and failing to fix them.
He said: “From this time of year onwards, we tend to see increases in respiratory illness.
“We have had a mild autumn and that means there is a lot of viral illness around.
“We are seeing more respiratory illness and that is predictable at this time of year, every year.
“That is why, when the HSE publishes its winter plan, the winter always seems to come as a surprise to them.
“But they don’t provide the necessary [solutions] to be able to solve the problems, which are essentially about creating capacity.”
He added: “Unless we create capacity to deal with demand, this will be a problem throughout the winter.”
Dr Hickey is a senior emergency consultant at Sligo Regional Hospital and president of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine.
He also accused health chiefs of failing to fix the country’s A&E overcrowding crisis – even though it is within their power, he claimed.
Dr Hickey said: “The basic problem is that we don’t have the bed stock.
“This problem is particularly acute in Ireland. We have two-thirds of the acute hospital beds per 1,000 of population of the OECD average.”
Figures released last year show that OECD countries had an average of 4.4 acute hospital beds per 1,000 people in 2019.
But Ireland has only 2.69 acute hospital beds per 1,000 of population, while Germany, for example, has 5.95.
Dr Hickey said: “As long as this is the position, we are going to be under pressure because it means anyone who requires admission doesn’t have a bed.
“It is almost impossible to get them out because of a lack of community facilities.”
He added: “There is no doubt that the impact of the pandemic has tired staff and forced many staff to leave.
“That is going to be an increasing problem because of the incessant pressure that emergency departments are under.
“But this is within the capacity of the HSE and the Department of the Health to solve – but they have failed repeatedly to solve it.”
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