University Hospital Galway has been the second most overcrowded in Ireland seven times in the last ten days of records.
Today UHG is the second worst affected hospital in Ireland with 41 patients on trolleys or in overcrowded wards.
It is only behind UH Limerick, consistently the most packed public hospital in Ireland, where there are 56 on trolleys today.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation keeps track of the number of patients without a bed in Emergency Departments and overpacked wards in its daily Trolley/Ward Watch.
Nurses take a daily count of those on trolleys each morning from Monday through to Friday.
In the past ten days, there have only been three times when UHG wasn’t the second most impacted in the country by a shortage of beds, and only once when it didn’t crack the top three.
In total there have been 431 patients who were unable to secure a bed at UHG in the past ten week days.
The INMO has warned that Saolta needs to curtail services in Galway and throughout the group due to a shortage of frontline nurses.
Anne Burke, INMO officer for Galway, Mayo, and Roscommon said that this is a recipe for disaster for staff and patients alike.
“Our frontline members tell us that day staffing levels now resemble the night shift,” she said.
“We provided management with specific examples of missed care and impacts on patients, but services have still not been curtailed to ensure safe staffing.”
According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation there are currently 64 staff nurses at University Hospital Galway, with a recruitment ban having a severe effect on maintaining staffing levels at hospitals.
There was controversy last month when it emerged that of the nursing students from UHG graduating this year, only a tiny fraction were being offered positions within the health service.
