Almost 2,000 people were recorded as being on trolleys or chairs at local hospitals last month.
Over 10,679 people patients have been left without a bed in Irish hospitals in October according to the INMO Monthly TrolleyWatch figures.
Galway University Hospital had the third highest totals in the country with 810 patients waiting at the ED for treatment last month. Sligo University Hospital has recorded the fifth highest level of overcrowding nationally with 700 people waiting on a bed at the hospital in October. The total in the North West hospital was 450 in the same month last year, a rise of 250. Figures for other hospitals' EDs in this region in October were broadly similar to 2021 numbers with 220 and 133 waiting on trolleys last month in Mullingar and Portiuncula respectively.
At Tullamore hospital there was a marked decline in the numbers year on year - dropping from 276 to 103 in the last twelve months. Over 393 children under the age of sixteen were on trolleys across the country in the month of October, the worst month for paediatric overcrowding on record.
INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha says unsafe staffing levels are going to be a feature of this winter unless targeted recruitment and retention plans are put in place at each hospital.
