There has been a 40 per cent increase in the number of people treated on trolleys at Mayo General Hospital in the last two years.
This followed two years where the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation saw a 52 per cent decrease in its trolley watch figures for the Mayo hospital.
The figures confirm that initiatives which commenced in 2006 did have a temporary positive impact on the problem but over the last two years the situation has escalated once again.
The phasing out of these positive initiatives since 2008 is represented in an increase in patients on trolleys by 20 per cent in 2009 (1,454 ) at Mayo General and another 20 per cent in 2010 (1,742 ).
While 2010 has been confirmed as the worst year on record for overcrowding at the country’s A&E departments, Mayo General Hospital bucks this trend with a 24 per cent decrease in patients on trolleys in 2010 (1,742 ) from 2006 (2,285 ).
As the General Election date looms the INMO now calls for a clear declaration, from all parties contesting the election, as to what measures they will introduce within 30 days of being in government, to address this crisis, alleviate the indignity of patients, and reduce the excessive workloads on frontline staff.
Speaking on the publication of this analysis, INMO general secretary, Liam Doran said: “There is very little to be added to the picture confirmed by these stark and shocking figures. The recent announcement, that a ‘team of experts’ had landed in six or seven of the worst affected hospitals, to advise on this problem, eight years after it began, only adds insult to the injury being suffered by patients, every day, as a result of this national disgrace.
“We do not need experts to tell us that we need to open the closed beds, provide nurse-led minor injury clinics and additional resources for primary care services in order to deal with this problem.”
Mr Doran added that the other recent suggestion, leaked to the media by the Department of Health, that the problem can be solved by placing extra beds on in-patient wards is also a “tried, flawed, and failed” practice of the past which should never be revisited.
“The General Election now provides the opportunity for all political parties, seeking to have a say in the government of this country, to outline exactly what they will do to address what is, by any measurement, as great a national emergency as our economic problems.”
