A LIMERICK HOSPITAL is so overcrowded that it had become “unsafe,” according to nurses in the hospital.

Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) have called on the HSE to implement the major disaster plan to deal with the overcrowding in the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick.

Staff have said that they are battling to maintain a safe level of care to patients.

The hospital has capacity of approximately 350 in-patient beds but currently has an additional 96 patients on top of that. As of this morning there were 34 patients on trolleys in the emergency department, 3 of whom were children.

“It is incomprehensible that a hospital is allowed to reach such levels of over capacity which undoubtedly lead to unsafe practices, low standards of care, mistakes and neglect of ill patients,” said INMO Industrial Relations Officer Mary Fogarty.

She called on GPs in the region to attend the hospital and provide and assistance that they may be able to offer.

Ten beds at the hospital are already closed due the outbreak of an infection, increasing pressure on already stretched resources.

Reilly under fire over admission that operations will be cancelled >