40 people left waiting for admission as hospital runs out of beds

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Written by Administrator

Wednesday, 14 February 2007

Over 40 people were left waiting for admission at University College Hospital Galway (UCHG) yesterday because of a massive beds shortage.

Twenty-seven people were waiting to be seen in the Accident and Emergency room, while 13 people had to be relocated to the Day Care Unit because of the lack of space in the A&E.

A spokesperson for the Health Service Executive said the hospital was "extremely busy on Monday night and because it was so busy people ended up on trolleys".

She said the HSE was asking people to go to their GPs if they felt that their GP could provide them with a service as appropriate before going to the A&E.

"Obviously, if people feel they need to come to the hospital, it's fine," she said.

A number of measures were put into place to try and alleviate the situation, including the cancellation of elective surgery.

Director of Nursing Mary McHugh said the hospital was doing everything it could think of to ease the crisis. She said they looked at people in the "potential discharge" category to see if they could be released.

The hospital had also held talks with consultants and continued to keep the pressure up all day until the situation was resolved. She said, "Absolutely all of our beds used. There are no beds we can open, we have actually nothing left."

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