There are 53 patients on trolleys at Cork University Hospital and 23 without a bed at the Mercy University Hospital today, according to the latest Trolley Watch figures
The union say nursing staff are exhausted and burnt out and are warning that nursing staff will walk out of their jobs if the situation does not improve.
The lack of step down facilities and community beds has long been blamed for overcrowding at acute hospitals in the city.
Speaking to RedFM News, Liam Conway from the INMO says urgent action is needed:
"It's chaotic. It's really, really dangerous in terms of Covid-19. We've called on the government to take urgent public health measures in terms of trying to protect our hospitals and emergency departments and our members working in those departments in an overcrowded environment. The level of overcrowding now is completely unsustainable. So we need the TDs, we need the government to take urgent action. We've been calling for that for the last number of months now, but it needs an urgent response because what we're seeing here today is chaotic scenes, dangerous emergency departments, overcrowding that's completely unsustainable and our members are going to walk out of the service; they're going to leave because they're burnt out."
