MEMBERS of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) are battling to maintain a safe level of care to patients at the Mid Western Regional Hospital, Limerick.
The Hospital, they claim, is stretched beyond manageable and safe parameters in terms of the volume of admitted patients requiring medical and nursing care, and available beds and nursing staff to administer safe care.
This Tuesday morning there were:
34 patients on trolleys in ED (3 of whom are children)
12 admitted patients on beds in the Medical Assessment Unit
11 patients on beds in the Surgical Day Ward
25 on beds in Ward 1B where closed beds have re-opened with skeleton staff
14 patients on extra beds/trolleys around wards
In effect, the hospital has 96 additional in-patients above the normal capacity of approximately 350 in-patient beds.
Ten beds at the hospital are closed due to an infection outbreak. This gross overcrowding is almost certainly a contributing factor to infection outbreaks and has a bearing on patient outcomes.
