A consultant in emergency medicine at Sligo Hospital has said it is time to address the lack of critical care bed capacity in hospitals rather than seek to reassure people that there is not a problem.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Dr Fergal Hickey said that at the start of the pandemic every bit of capacity was used for Covid-19, along with a drop in attendances at hospital emergency departments.
This has now ended as the system returned to pre-Covid operations. He expressed concern about the lack of critical care beds available if there is a surge in hospitalisations as a result of the Covid-19 virus.
Dr Hickey said that the 2009 Prospectus Report on Excellence in Critical Care stated there was then 289 beds in critical care.