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Updated 6pm
HEALTH MINISTER LEO Varadkar has said that while significant progress has been made in tackling the overcrowding crisis in the country’s emergency departments, we’re “not out of the woods yet”.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Marian Finucane he thanked medical staff who had, he said, pulled out all the stops to address the problem over the last week.
“Next week, the junior doctors change over, and that’s always a difficult time in the health service,” the Minister added.
There is some evidence that influenza might be on the way — and if that happens we’ll be in great difficulty.
There’s been a renewed focus on the overcrowding issue in recent days after nursing union the INMO said on Tuesday that the numbers on trolleys had exceeded 600.
Varadkar said official figures showed there were 525 people on trolleys in emergency departments on Tuesday last — the highest number in four years.
Today’s figure was 209, he said, noting that the INMO had changed the way it counted trolleys in recent years to include people in wards.
Either way, he said, the figure was still “far too high”.
“Nobody should be on a trolley for more than nine hours,” he said.
While there are now no patients on trolleys at a number of facilities, there are also a number of hospitals where it’s still a major problem, he said.
In Galway University Hospital, there had been “difficulty finding staff to open beds” while in Drogheda there has been a shortage in “available nursing home beds”.
“A surge like this is not unique to Ireland,” the Minister added, noting that similar problems had been experienced in Belfast.
Fergal Hickey, a consultant in emergency medicine in Sligo General and spokesman for the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine, warned earlier this week that the upcoming changeover in junior doctors would result in slower processing of patients.
“Monday is the busiest day in hospitals, by far,” he said.
“Therefore it’s not a particularly good day to be changing over junior medical staff, rather than the middle of the week.”
He said that in “a perfect world” such changeovers should happen at times when hospitals are less busy, in February and in August — rather than in January and July, as currently happens.
Varadkar today also condemned consultants who are refusing to accept new patients, saying this is “unacceptable”. However the minister stressed this is limited to a dozen or half a dozen consultants of the more than 3,000 working in the Irish health system.
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“Roll up and see for yourselves how copy and paste works in journalism!”
@James Groden: watch as we delete all comments that don’t agree with our opinion and in some cases don’t allow comments at all!
Watch as we slightly reword Government press releases on various subjects where the public are told to get back in our boxes and do what we’re told and then turn the comment section off, because we don’t don’t want any dissenting voices.
Watch as we shut down the comment section when too many comments go against the narrative.. Breaking News! “Ten People killed in overnight raids in Gaza” Yea shut down comments on that one, as we don’t want People giving out about Israel.. Journalists my ar_se
In the past few weeks statements made by government Minister’s, the comment section has been closed. The taking down of comments that contain no personal or unacceptable comment but would have been critical of government have been removed. Bit hypocritical of the Journal.
@William slevin: respond to what? your mas ravings? No point. At this stage I pity you.
@establishment loyalist fascist lil joey:
I didn’t ignore it no offence I forgot about it…also its not a priority to reply to every reply you make to me which is alot…
But I think it was about the 70 year old assaulted in clare? I don’t know the circumstances of the assault but I’m guessing your employing it was done by anti mass immigration protestors….do you have proof of this? But let’s say it’s true I have no idea….I abhor violence against anyone unless its done for defensive reasons….if this 70 year old man was attacked by one of the protestors….then I would condemned such an attack as that infringes on the right of the 70 year old not to be assaulted for no reason…
So I would condemn such an attack
@William slevin: why willie and leave your mad raving influence others wrongly. Like your support for the protest in Clare….you know the one….I asked for your view of what happemed there on Sunday…and you ignored my question…..
Also you repeatedly ignore me asking you for proof of the false claim you keep making against me that I’ve incited hatred…well Where’s your proof…I want the comments and the articles where I supposedly incited hatred….
You haven’t so far because you can’t…because your a liar….
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