Over 12,000 people were on trolleys at Irish hospitals last month.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has estimated that a total of 12,201 people had to wait for a bed in January.
That figure, from the INMO’s TrolleyWatch, is the highest ever for a single month since records began.
Among the country’s most overcrowded hospitals in January were Dublin’s St Vincent’s University Hospital with 559 people waiting on trolleys and the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick where 1,003 people waited for a bed.
The worst day in the month was Wednesday 3 January at the peak of the flu season, when 677 patients were on trolleys in hospitals across the country, the highest number ever recorded for a single day.
January’s total figure is an 18 per cent increase on the number for the same time last year.
General Secretary of the INMO Phil Ni Sheaghdha decried these “appalling” conditions.
“This is an incredible level of overcrowding and the appalling conditions experienced in Emergency Departments are now beyond anything we have ever seen,” she said.
“It now amounts to a humanitarian crisis for patients and a risk-rich environment for those trying to work in such chaotic conditions.
“INMO members cannot be expected to tolerate such appalling and dangerous working environments and, at this point, many members of the public are openly asking the nurses how they could tolerate such a situation.”
Its members are meeting next week to discuss the crisis and decide what course of action to take.
