A number of hospitals are coming under pressure across the country as the winter months approach, but one Dublin facility is at breaking point according to the INMO.
The Mater Hospital is coping with unsafe conditions as its Emergency Department is “bursting at its seams” meaning nursing staff are “swamped” with so many patients they can’t even take breaks.
The number of people hospitalised with Covid is also increasing at The Mater and so conditions are “dangerous” for both the patients being treated and the staff working there.
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The INMO is now calling on Mater bosses to act immediately on improving these conditions in order to guarantee the safety of those receiving and giving care.
Describing the horrendous conditions, Assistant director of industrial relations Maeve Brehony said: “INMO members in the Emergency Department and throughout the Mater are indicating that their place of work is no longer safe for the patients they are trying to care for, or the staff working there.
“Day after day and night after night, our members are reporting that while the emergency department is bursting at its seams, the nursing staff are being swamped and unable to take even minimum breaks.
"This is dangerous on so many different levels.”
Referencing the HSE’s winter plan, which was published yesterday, Ms. Brehony said: “Each ED should conduct an urgent analysis to identify and address gaps and risks, the Mater must move to undertake this process immediately.
“Our members and their patients require hospital management to provide immediate support and action to alleviate the intolerable situation our members are enduring.”
Meanwhile, Children’s Hospital Ireland, at Dublin’s Temple Street, put out a warning to parents thinking of bringing their children in to only do so if it is an emergency as their A&E continues to experience “extremely high numbers of patients”.
In a statement released earlier this week, it warned: “If your child does not require emergency or urgent care please consider seeing your GP or Pharmacist in the first instance.”
In terms of the number of patients waiting on trolleys in hospitals across the country, the Mater recorded 40 patients without a bed yesterday, according to the INMO’s daily Trolleywatch.
St James’ Hospital in Dublin had 39 patients waiting for a bed while the highest figure in the country was in Cork University Hospital.
There were 66 people in the Emergency Department without access to a bed on Wednesday.
This comes after the HSE suggested that the incoming Covid wave would see at least 2,900 patients hospitalised with flu and a massive 17,000 with Covid during what is expected to be an “uncertain” and “very difficult” winter.
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