Slight drop in patients on trolleys in Cavan General Hospital

The number of patients on trolleys in Cavan General Hospital dropped slightly last year according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

The organisation has published its figures for 2021, showing 792 patients were on trolleys in the local facility throughout the year. That’s down from 915 the year before.

2011 saw Cavan General reach its peak when 4,572 people were treated on trolleys or in chairs, with a decline in the years since.

The onset of the pandemic and an increase in resources to free up beds in hospitals has played its part in the last two years.

2019, the last year before the arrival of Covid-19, saw 2,137 people on trolleys in Cavan.

December 2021 saw 66 patients without beds, more than twice the figure for the same month in 2020. Again however, it is well below the 2019 figure of 189.

In an interview with The Anglo-Celt in December, interim manager at the facility Su-Zann O’Callaghan highlighted work between CGH and the Lisdarn Unit for helping to reduce pressure on the hospital.

The HSE approved funding to open step-down beds at the facility in 2020 to allow for patients who no longer require acute hospital treatment to be cared for.

Su-Zann O’Callaghan was hopeful at the time that the cooperation would continue into the future.

National picture

While Cavan General has seen an improvement, the national picture showed a different story.

70,275 people were treated on trolleys across the country last year, up by more than 16,000 in 2020 with 53,325.

INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha has hit out at the situation and has called for action from the Government:

“The fact that we have seen the numbers of patients on trolleys rise by 31% during the second year of a pandemic is completely unacceptable. Hospital overcrowding should never be acceptable, especially when we have a highly transmissible virus.

“Radical action is now needed to curb the unacceptable levels of overcrowding in our hospitals. This is not a new phenomenon; the health service cannot continue to make the same decisions year in year out and expect different outcomes.”