"We can't go back to pre-pandemic levels of hospital overcrowding"
That's the message from the Irish Nurses AND Midwives Organisation who say that Cork University Hospital had seven hundred and fifty patients on trolleys during the month of January, the third highest in the country after University Hospital Limerick and Letterkenny University Hospital.
The organisation say it's not acceptable that chronic overcrowding is allowed to continue while Covid is still rampant in many hospitals.
Speaking to RedFM News, Liam Conway from the INMO says there are simple steps that can be taken by the Government and Department of Health:
"We need additional rehabilitation beds in Cork City and County we need somewhere to step down patients that don't require the acute phase of care in the emergency departments. There is currently no pathway and even looking at private capacity prisons and raising decision with the Mercy last week they have provided information to suggest that there isn't actually enough faith in the system, and there's not enough private capacity to discharge the patients to either so it is a real, real problem, we know this will have devastating impact in terms of recruitment and retention of nurses, and also most importantly as well for our members, is patients care."
