Over 9,000 patients, including almost 100 children, were left waiting on hospital trolleys during the month of May, new figures have shown.

According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation's (INMO) latest ‘Trolley/Ward Watch' figures, 9,091 admitted patients were left waiting on trolleys in overcrowded Emergency Departments (EDs) or wards last month.

This included 92 children in Dublin's three children's hospitals.

This marks a 12% increase on the figures for May 2017, when 8,154 patients were left waiting on trolleys, and a 118% increase on the figures a decade ago (May 2008), when 4,164 patients were on trolleys.

The worst affected hospitals last month were University Hospital Limerick (858 patients on trolleys), Cork University Hospital (826) and University Hospital Galway (637). The worst affected Dublin hospital was Talllaght Hospital (532).

The INMO said that these figures confirm that overcrowding ‘is an increasing problem year on year and a feature of patient care throughout the whole 12 months'.

Irish hospitals are now ‘constantly overcrowded' and working above recognised safe occupancy levels, even in the summer periods, which used to be a traditionally quieter time for the health service.

"The INMO is seeking a total review of the national planning process and particularly the ‘Winter Initiative', as solutions to this constant and worsening crisis cannot wait for funding injection in late November or January when the escalating problems are out of control.

"We live in a society which expects a long wait, and a lack of privacy and dignity when attending EDs. It is not acceptable. It is a basic human right that a person deemed as requiring hospital admission is admitted to a suitable bed, which is appropriately staffed," commented INMO general secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdha.

She said that complacency ‘must be replaced with proactive planning', which aims to solve this problem, rather than simply reduce the number of patients on trolleys.

Ms Ni Sheaghdha pointed out that the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) recommended back in 2012 that patients should not be cared for in corridors and inappropriate spaces in EDs.

"These HIQA recommendations are like a fairy-tale considering the worsening problems with overcrowding since its report," she added.