Last month was the busiest October on record at St Luke’s Hospital for Carlow Kilkenny.
The latest Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation figures show it’s also been the busiest year to date there since their records began.
October’s INMO figures show that 8,903 patients were left without a bed in all hospitals across Ireland
495 of these patients were in St. Luke’s Hospital, showing an increase of 269 compared to October 2016, and making it the fifth most overcrowded hospital in Ireland.
Since January, more than 3,600 patients have been without a bed locally.
Records first began at St Luke’s in 2010 and between January and October of that year, a TOTAL of just 71 patients were on trolleys.
Nationally, these latest figures are an increase of 8% on the same time period last year.