UHW Trolley numbers hit 16-year low in 2024
Trolley Watch
The number of patients waiting on trollies for hospital beds at University Hospital Waterford in 2024 was at its lowest in 16 years, data from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) shows.
The metric which is meant to demonstrate the level of overcrowding in Irish hospitals shows that, in the last calendar year, just 385 people were put on trollies in the Déise hospital.
While INMO began collecting the data 17 years ago, the numbers for UHW started to be collected in 2008. In the first year, 496 were left on hospital trollies waiting for care with that number steadily rising over a seven-year period. In 2015, that number reached 2,445 before overcrowding in Waterford exploded, more than doubling in a four-year period to 6,313 in 2019.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, overcrowding numbers cooled significantly while patient restrictions were in place in hospitals across the country, dropping to 910 in 2020, 460 in 2021, and 772 in 2022.
The INMO Trolley Watch figures remained consistent in 2023 when 707 were stuck on trollies before nearly halving to 385 in 2024.
While data for University Hospital Waterford paints a promising picture, national overcrowding data is less kind. Waterford TD and Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health, David Cullinane has called on the government to increase hospital capacity across the country in light of worrying overcrowding figures in January 2025.
"January 2025 has been the worst January on record for overcrowding according to the INMO’s trolley figures," Deputy Cullinane said, noting the release of the first ever ‘Behind the Trolley Numbers’ Survey by the union. He said the survey "highlights the desperate conditions and patient safety risks which are caused by the trolley crisis".
"Healthcare workers are doing their best in the most difficult circumstances, and do not feel supported," he said.
"Their working conditions cause serious moral injury. Many feel that they are being taken advantage of in a broken system," he added.
Cullinane called for the construction of 5,000 beds to eliminate the use of trolleys and chairs, and provide safe surge capacity.
The INMO survey found that 84.37 per cent of their surveyed members cared for patients in "inappropriate" settings like corridors, waiting rooms, ward porches, and treatment rooms, and 85.28 per cent of these respondents believed that patient care and safety were compromised in these settings.
