Hospital crisis hits new high – as numbers left waiting doubles in a decade

Almost 9,500 patients were forced to wait on trolleys and chairs in University Hospital Galway and Portiuncula Hospital in 2019 – a figure that has more than doubled in the past decade.

The crisis was at its most acute this week, with last Monday recorded as the worst day ever for hospital overcrowding across the country since trolley figures began.

UHG alone was packed beyond capacity with one child under the age of 16 among the 47 admitted patients waiting on trolleys.

But, despite the record numbers, statistics show it’s just part of a continuing spiral.

Because figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation – which records the ‘Trolley and Ward Watch’ numbers at every public hospital in the country – show that between January and the end of December 2019, there were 7,993 patients on trolleys or chairs at UHG.

And at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, there were 1,503 patients counted on trolleys.

The figures for a decade earlier in 2009 stood at 3,444 for UHG and 605 for Portiuncula – that translates to an increase of 134% in ten years.

Read the full story and news analysis in this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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