• Incoming President Matthew Sadlier, a consultant psychiatrist, calls for 5,000 additional hospital beds as an urgent priority
• ‘No amount of  productivity or efficiencies will make up for the fact that we don’t have enough hospital beds to satisfy the predictable health needs of the population’

Thursday April 9, 2026.  The incoming President of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has warned that a focus on productivity in healthcare will not address our fundamental problems of overstretched hospital capacity and poor workforce planning, which is putting patient welfare at risk.

Professor Matthew Sadlier, who is a consultant psychiatrist, made the warning as the IMO AGM begins today (Thursday) in Killarney, Co Kerry.

He said that the IMO supported the idea of an extended health service in theory, but it would be impossible to deliver without putting those building blocks of requisite workforce planning and bed capacity in place first, adding that 5,000 additional hospital beds were needed as an urgent priority.

“Every year the IMO warns that we do not have the bed numbers or healthcare staff to deliver an optimal health service for patients, and the recent focus on productivity in healthcare will not paper over the cracks that are endemic in the system. We would warn against a numbers game in healthcare – the best treatment centres on quality and excellence. If doctors are compelled to work with one eye on the clock, then we will inevitably sacrifice the quality care that is already being affected by our lack of beds and staff. No amount of increased investment in personnel, productivity or efficiencies will make up for the fact that we don’t have enough hospital beds to satisfy the predictable health needs of the population.

“Last month marked the 20^th anniversary of a declaration of a national emergency regarding overcrowding in hospital emergency departments by the then health Minister Mary Harney, and it is profoundly depressing that the conditions in ED which warranted the calling of an emergency then, have not moved to what is required to manage the needs of patients today.”    

“Two decades on from 2006, there is still a national emergency in our EDs but the state of emergency has now spread out to the public hospital system generally. Hospitals are overcrowded across the year, elective surgeries are cancelled in ever increasing numbers and waiting lists have exploded. While there has been a substantial increase in annual spending on healthcare, this has been more than matched by the increase in our population and the growth in our elderly population, along with advances in medicine which in and of themselves are expensive.  We are now seeing the usual headlines of overspend in the HSE and while we must all ensure value for money we do need to critically examine what is the actual cost of delivering a modern health service and have honest conversations as to how that can be achieved.  We cannot keep promising better if we are not willing to pay for it.”