Overcrowding means "tragic" events like those seen at University Hospital Limerick are likely to keep on happening, an expert has warned.
Professor of Health Systems at DCU Anthony Staines was speaking as 641 patients are without a bed in Irish hospitals today, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
The highest number of these are in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) where 118 people are on trolleys or chairs.
Some 98 patients are without a bed in Cork University Hospital (CUH), which is a new record for overcrowding there.
Prof Anthony Staines told The Hard Shoulder such high numbers can have tragic outcomes.
"It is a source of considerable concern," he said.
"We know that this is causing serious damage to people and we know - tragically - some people are losing their lives.
"We saw the very recent reports into the tragic case in University Hospital Limerick but similar events could happen in any hospital.
"Given the pressures hospital staff and ED departments are working under, they're likely to keep on happening."
'Trying to do everything in hospitals'
Prof Staines said Irish hospital occupancy is consistently higher compared to other countries.
"A couple of different things are happening - one is that we don't have enough hospital beds for the growth in population, the ageing population," he said.
"But more fundamentally, we're trying to do everything in hospitals.
"People who need care are turning up at hospitals - in other countries primary care [and] general practice is much better resourced and could do a lot more.
"There are minor injury clinics, there are various kinds of 'less emergency' Emergency Departments for people who are sick but not at Emergency Department level."
'Extraordinary excuse'
Prof Staines said the Irish system is set up differently.
"None of that is in place for most Irish health service users," he said.
"Most of our minor injury clinics are either linked directly to health insurers or they're private themselves and that's very unsatisfactory for everybody.
"The CUH says that the pressure in the Emergency Department is exacerbated by continued impact of the cyberattack on the HSE: that was [in] May 2021.
"That's an extraordinary excuse to be making now."
A busy hospital ward with nurses and a trolley, 21-4-16. Image: Mark Thomas / AlamyProf Staines said changes are not being made "to keep people out of hospitals" - pointing to programmes in the Midlands and Donegal.
"There's a lot of low cost interventions that we're not making," he said.
"There's a brilliant program in Donegal where they deal with people that have chronic respiratory disease and keep them out of hospital.
"These are people who would have three or four admissions a year to hospital - they're not having any.
"There was a program running in the Midlands which did something very similar for heart failure.
"The technical programme, which could save dozens of hospital beds all over the country, is still on in Donegal - which is great for Donegal but not so good for anywhere else."
Prof Staines added that a decision has to made "to put resources into it because it pays for itself."
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