A record number of patients are without beds in Irish hospitals.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) say 760 people are on trolleys - the worst ever day for overcrowding recorded.
The shocking figure is higher than the amount of patients needed to fill St James's Hospital - the largest in Ireland with 707 beds.
INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, said: “Ireland’s beleaguered health service continues to break records in the worst possible way.
"Our members are working in impossible conditions to provide the best care they can.
“The excuse that this is all down to the flu simply doesn’t hold. There are always extra patients in winter, but we simply do not get the extra capacity to cope.
"This is entirely predictable, yet we seemingly fail to deal with it every year."
The number smashed the previous record of 714, which was set on March 12, 2018 following the Beast from the East.
University Hospital Limerick also broke the record for a single hospital with 92 patients on trolleys - beating the previous highest of 82 which it also set.
The worst hospitals are:
- University Hospital Limerick - 92
- Cork University Hospital - 56
- University Hospital Galway – 47
- South Tipperary General Hospital – 40
Ní Sheaghdha added: “The government need to immediately initiate a major incident protocol. We need to cancel elective surgeries, stop non-emergency admissions, and source extra capacity wherever we can.
“We also need to immediately scrap the HSE’s counterproductive recruitment pause, which is leaving these services understaffed and thus overcrowded.
“Behind these numbers are hundreds of individual vulnerable patients – it is a simply shameful situation. This is entirely preventable if proper planning was in place.”
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