The HSE has advised GPs working in the Beaumont Hospital catchment area in Dublin to refer patients with minor injuries to a clinic due to severe overcrowding at the hospital's emergency department.
From Thursday patients with minor injuries from the area are being referred to the Smithfield Rapid Injury Clinic, which already provides care and treatment for minor injuries for the Mater Hospital.
Beaumont Hospital has asked people not to come to attend its emergency department unless absolutely necessary.
It said the department was seeing a high volume of older people, many of whomn have respiratory or flu-like symptoms.
There were 39 patients on trolleys or wards in Beaumont Hospital on Thursday, down from 54 patients on Wednesday.
There were 16 patients on trolleys at the Mater hospital on Thursday.
A number of patients there said on Wednesday they had been waiting on chairs for over 24-hours before a bed became available.
Dr Peadar Gilligan, chair of the Irish Medical Organisation's consultant committee, told RTÉ's Morning Ireland doctors' ability to provide care and assess patients had been compromised due to a lack of appropriate space at Beaumont.
“Our ability to do a thorough clinical examination is compromised as well,” said Mr Gilligan.
“And indeed our ability to deliver timely treatment is hugely compromised by virtue of the fact that often we have to wait for a clinical care space to become available to try and see the patient.”
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has called on Beaumont Hospital on Wednesday to go off-call immediately due to the “unsafe conditions” in its emergency department.
The INMO said ambulances were continuing to arrive with sick patients at an increasingly overcrowded hospital.
“The hospital is in crisis since Monday yet the appropriate actions have not been taken to address the severe overcrowding levels,” said Lorraine Monaghan from the INMO.
“It is imperative that the hospital goes off call immediately and remains off call until such time that the situation is brought under control.”
