Overcrowding at Galway’s two main public hospitals in 2022 was the worst year on record.

The number of patients on trolleys, without a hospital bed, and awaiting admission to University Hospital Galway topped 10,000 in the past year.

That was double the numbers waiting on trolleys at the city hospital compared with the previous year.

And it was more than 2,000 extra patients on trolleys compared with 2019, the previous record year for the most overcrowded Emergency Departments.

With 10,012 patients waiting for beds, UHG was the third most overcrowded hospital in the country after Limerick and Cork.

The situation in its sister Portiuncula University Hospital was bleak too. Some 2,501 patients languished on trolleys in the corridors of the Ballinasloe hospital throughout the past year, according to the INMO Trolley Watch figures.

That was up by a third on the 2021 figures, and some 1,000 patients more than the record year of overcrowding in Ballinasloe in 2019.

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