April figures for patients on trolleys at St Lukes Hospital were the highest for the month since records began.
The cumulative figures for January to April are also the highest they’ve ever been at the local hospital.
Statistics from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation show last month there was a total of 319 people waiting for a bed in St Luke’s Hospital.
This is the highest April figure locally since the numbers were first recorded there in 2011, and within the top 10 most overcrowded Emergency Departments in the country this year.
2012 saw a low of just 24 people on trolleys locally, which was in keeping with the low numbers nationally that year.
The combined figures from January to April for this year were 1,472 – an increase of 200 on last year, and an increase of more than 1,300 people on the 2011 low of just 169.
Overall, nationally the INMO’s trolley watch analysis shows overcrowding increased in the first four months of 2017 but decreased in April.
