The accident and emergency department at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Mullingar remains off call today due to severe overcrowding.
Ambulances are being redirected to A&E departments at hospitals in Tullamore, Portlaoise and Ballinasloe.
The Irish Nurses’ Organisation says the overcrowding in Mullingar is “unsafe and unmanageable”.
The severe overcrowding comes just weeks after the Health Service Executive took 41 beds at the hospital out of the system, and it was learned that 35 nursing staff members who retired were not replaced.
The nurses’ organisation said that at one stage yesterday 23 patients were waiting on trolleys to be admitted and there were no trolleys available for new patients coming in.
The INO says that Mullingar A&E has seen an 800 per cent increase in the number of patients waiting on trolleys in November 2009 compared to figures for November 2007.
It attributes the crisis yesterday to the closure of 41 beds. It says no communication or consultation took place with the INO regarding the bed closures, which it predicted would have serious consequences for the accident and emergency department and the hospital as a whole.
A statement issued by the HSE two weeks ago revealed that while the number of day beds had increased by 13 and there were an additional five observation unit beds at the hospital, the number of emergency beds had dropped from 197 to 158 – a reduction of 39 or 20 per cent.