Hospital overcrowding 'costing lives', warns new IMO chief
Overcrowding in emergency departments of Irish hospitals is costing lives, the new President of the Irish Medical Organisation has said.
Dr Peadar Gilligan's comments came as part of his inaugural address at the organisation’s AGM in Killarney last night.
He also called for the introduction of a six-hour standard between the time a patient arrives in an Emergency Department and the time they are admitted or discharged.
The current average waiting time in emergency departments in Dublin is 14 hours.
"In Ireland, we have our emergency departments running, often times, at 200% capacity," he said.
"Every clinical space in the emergency department is occupied by admitted patients and patients are being cared for in corridors.
"We really need to address this problem, and the way to address it is adequate capacity in the system, which means putting beds into the system and the associated staff to provide care for the patients in those beds."
