Over 500 patients on hospital trolleys as crisis eases

The trolley crisis has eased slightly, with 506 patients waiting in hospital emergency departments for admission to a bed, according to the latest figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

The HSE, which performs its own count, says trolley numbers are 10 per cent lower than on the equivalent day last year.

There were 375 patients on trolleys and a further 131 patients waiting in wards for admission to a bed on Tuesday morning, according to the INMO. This was up on Monday but lower than the same time last week, when numbers hit a record 612 people waiting for admission.

The slight reduction in trolley numbers is probably the result of the opening up of beds.

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University Hospital Limerick and Cork University Hospital, each with 44 patients waiting, were the worst affected.

Under HSE targets, the number of patients on trolleys on a given day is not supposed to exceed 236.