Tag Archives: ED crisis

Hospital crowding crisis will continue until “cuts to bed numbers are reversed"

Dr Ruairi Hanley explains why more funding for primary care won’t help the looming winter hospital crisis, and highlights the necessity of the continued existence of ‘Big Pharma’

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has renewed its call for a national health summit and has urged TDs to demonstrate new politics by showing cross party and independent support for the voice of nurses and midwives in Seanad Éireann.

The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine (IAEM) hopes that this week’s agreement between the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) and the HSE will ensure that “consistent, effective escalation policies” are in place around the country, allowing hospitals to respond in a more timely fashion to emergency department (ED) crowding.

As a “last resort”, extra beds will be put on wards to solve the excessive crowding problem in our emergency departments (EDs), a new acute hospitals trolley protocol has mandated.

Dr Ruairi Hanley laments the public’s sometimes warped sense of political priority, which results in mass protests against water charges rather than over the crisis in our EDs, and questions the priorities of Fine Gael ahead of the 1916 celebrations.

The Clare Faculty ICGP Study Day being held at the Inn at Dromoland, Newmarket on Fergus, on February 7 will consider the topic ‘Healthcare in crisis: Irish general practice providing the solution’, and hear what leading local, national and invited experts believe Irish GPs can realistically achieve.