INMO 2025 stats place Mayo hospital in top ten for overcrowding

As 2025 comes to a close, many groups and organisations are releasing their facts and figures for the year, and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation are no different, as they seek to highlight the issue of overcrowding in hospitals, including Mayo.

The INMO Trolley Watch general figures have unearthed a slew of interesting data points, including those in Mayo University Hospital.

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Thankfully, the Castlebar hospital has reported low numbers of patients awaiting care across the festive period, a trend generally seen in Emergency Departments across the country.

However, Mayo features highly in the annual figures for patients on trollies.

In total, 4,340 patients were on trollies between the Emergency Department and elsewhere in the facility, seeing MUH rank as the eighth-highest in Ireland.

The figure of 4,340 makes up 3.8 per cent of the nationwide figure (114,029), and 4.9 percent of the total outside of Dublin (87,944).

Mayo University Hospital also ranked highly in terms of the number of patients who waited on trolleys to be seen outside of the ED. The total of 2,821 accounts for 7.3 percent of the Irish total (38,381) as well as 7.8 percent of those outside of the capital (36,128).

The total in this category places MUH as the sixth-highest hospital.

Thankfully, the number who were awaiting care in the Emergency Department paints a more favourable picture.

A total of 1,519 patients were recorded, leaving Mayo in 16th place out of the 32 hospitals nationwide.

Phil Ní Sheadhgha, the General Secretary of the INMO, moved to criticise the conditions faced by midwives and nurses around the country.

“While there has been a slight reduction in the number of patients being treated in an inappropriate space in our hospitals, the reliance on surge beds, which are not properly staffed, is a cause of concern," he stated. 

“There needs to be a turning point in how healthcare staffing is planned and managed, and it needs to start with an immediate filling of all funded posts while also focusing on capacity, staffing and conditions across acute and community services."