Will there be beds crisis in hospitals? It’s already here...

‘IT’S not a question of will we have a trolley crisis this year, we already have one,’ says Anthony Staines, Professor of Health Systems at DCU.

‘The last time I looked, and I’m scared to look most days, there were 160 people waiting on trolleys for beds in Irish hospitals.

‘Trolleys are not normal. In wealthy, developed countries like Ireland, people are only put on a trolley if there’s been a disaster.

‘But here it’s now established practice and has been for years.

‘This fact, and rising Covid rates, means the health service is headed for crisis this year.

‘The Covid rate is way too high at the moment and if we don’t want to see hundreds or, God forbid, thousands of people on trolleys this winter, we need to stop non-essential county to county travel straight away.

‘During the first surge, the Government took over the private hospitals for €60m, a huge waste of money from what I can see as there was little or no care given there. ‘No fault of the private hospitals, the Government didn’t seem to have a plan.

‘This time around, they urgently need a plan.’

Dr Catherine Motherway, President of the Intensive Care Society, says ICU capacity needs to be doubled now.

‘That won’t happen overnight, but it needs to start and it needs to start happening soon,’ she said.

Dr Motherway also said that much of our infrastructure is old, and new buildings will be needed as well as increased bed capacity for patients.

We’re also likely to see step-down capacity, such as the conference centre at Citywest, getting much more use.