The shortage of beds in the State's hospitals has become so acute that some patients who are recommended for admission by accident and emergency consultants never get beds, it has emerged.
A senior A&E consultant said yesterday that patients were spending up to two or three days in hospital casualty departments waiting for beds. This happened with "reasonable regularity", Dr Stephen Cusack said.
"After two or three days, either they have got over what they came in with and go home, or a bed becomes available", he said.
Dr Cusack, who is secretary to the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine, said that doctors and others working in A&E departments were extremely frustrated at the situation. "We are in a situation now where accident and emergency departments are open and hospitals are closed. We see patients, recommend that they be admitted, but there is nowhere for them to go."
He said the fact that so many patients had to remain in casualty made working conditions very difficult.
"We are providing a service under great strain, made worse by the fact that we cannot get patients moved into where they should be treated."
Dr Cusack said the problem was a year-round one, but had the potential to become more critical over the winter. "Over the last three years, the average number of patients waiting every morning for a bed in my institution \Cork University Hospital\ has gone up threefold. The average number now waiting every morning is 17."
A similar situation pertained in other large acute hospitals, particularly in Dublin. "We seem to be functioning against all odds and we will continue to do so. We want to reassure the public and want them to bear with us. We are as frustrated as they are", he said.
Dr Cusack called on other hospital physicians and surgeons to become "visibly involved" in sorting the problem as A&E consultants until a more long-term solution was found.
"But", he asked, "what can they do?" They, too, would blame a shortage of beds for the problem, but he felt they needed to mobilise themselves to move patients on as quickly as possible to free up beds for patients in casualty. "In the short term, we all have to deal with this", he said.
Computers at health boards and hospitals in Northern Ireland have been disrupted by a "worm", the Nimda-D virus, which was downloaded from the Internet. The worm slows down computers and has affected the Western Health and Social Services Board and Altnagelvin, Craigavon Area Hospital, Foyle, Mater, Royal Group, South and East Belfast and Sperrin Lakeland HSS Trusts. The virus spreads itself through e-mail and by inserting itself into web pages, from which it automatically downloads on to other computers. An earlier variant of the worm infected computer systems at The Irish Times and other companies in September. A spokesperson for the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety yesterday said urgent work was under way to remove the virus.