Equivalent of two planes full of people die every year due to crowding at Irish hospitals, group claims
An estimated 350 people are dying each year as a direct result of crowding in the country's Emergency Departments, The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine has claimed.
The group says it is deeply disappointing that on the day of the Budget, a total of 438 patients languished on trolleys in Ireland’s acute hospitals.
Dr Fergal Hickey, consultant in emergency medicine at Sligo University Hospital, said that the problem is costing lives and creating misery.
"We have large numbers of patients on trolleys and we know that in this situation, mortality goes up and the estimate is that about 350 patients per year die unnecessarily as a direct result of emergency department crowding.
"And this is the equivalent of two of the planes that fly from Ireland to Britain on a regular basis falling out of the sky every year, and yet nobody is actually dealing with the problem."
