Galway Bay fm newsroom – The Emergency Department at Portiuncula Hospital is extremely busy today with significant numbers of patients awaiting admission to the hospital.
Due to this increased level of activity and subsequent admissions, the HSE says patients are experiencing significant delays in being transferred from the Emergency Department to a bed in the hospital.
The Full Capacity Protocol has been implemented and all efforts continue to be made to identify patients who are appropriate for discharge.
As a consequence, a number of non-urgent elective procedures have been deferred today.
Management at the hospital are reminding the public only to attend the Emergency Department in the case of real emergencies and to contact their GP or GP Out-of-Hours service in the first instance.