There were 489 patients waiting to be admitted to hospital on Monday morning, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, as overcrowding continued to ease.
This compares to the 535 patients who were on trolleys on Friday, a day that would normally have lower figures than the start of the week.
The HSE says staff at all levels responded to its call to work over the weekend in order to ease pressure on the health service, with up to 30 per cent more staff onsite in some locations. As a result, the number of patients discharged at the weekend was higher than usual, meaning more beds were available for new patients admitted through the emergency department.
Trolley numbers could rise again on Tuesday, which is traditionally the day with the worst overcrowding, but now seem unlikely to reach the levels attained last week. A new record of 931 patients waiting for a bed was set last Tuesday, as measured by the INMO’s TrolleyWatch count.
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On Monday, there were 390 patients waiting for a bed in the emergency department and 99 in wards elsewhere in the hospital, the INMO said. The hospital with the highest trolley numbers was University Hospital Limerick, with 48, followed by Cork University Hospital (38) and Letterkenny University Hospital (28).
The HSE’s TrolleyGar count also monitors the number of patients waiting for admission, but only those in EDs. On Monday it recorded 360 patients waiting, 23 per cent higher than the same day last year.
In the first week of the year, almost 1,900 people waited for more than 24 hours for a bed, and the average wait-time was 13.8 for admitted patients.
There were 635 patients with Covid in hospital on Monday, up from 619 on Friday. This included 35 patients in intensive care, compared to 36 on Friday.
