IMO Statement - Overcrowding Crisis
Wednesday 3rd January 2018. The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has said that the overcrowding crisis in hospitals exposes the perilous state of the Irish health services.
In a statement today, the IMO said that the shameful situation being experienced this week has its roots in years of underinvestment and cutbacks across the health service. This isn’t a flu crisis or a temporary blip...this chaos is the reality of our health services today. Department of Health figures confirm that we are effectively running an emergency service only on a year-round basis with elective procedures now down to a trickle. In the UK it is seen as an option of almost last resort to cancel elective procedures while we in Ireland do this routinely which has led to a situation whereby 80% of admissions are emergency admissions. We are only ever hours away from a crisis such as we are experiencing this week.
The IMO said that the answer was threefold:
a) We need more beds – patients on trolleys require admission and cannot be managed in General Practice or in Emergency Departments.
b) We need to attract more consultants into the Irish health system
c) We need to invest in General Practice to allow more services and care to be provided by GPs.
Ends