A nurses' union says staff are under extreme pressure, from what they say is essentially two emergency departments being run in each hospital.
The INMO says staff are under strain to run covid and non-covid departments, while demand for care increases.
They say there is a lot of unmet demand for treatment due to the pandemic.
Tony Fitzpatrick, Director of Industrial Relations at the INMO, says those presenting to ED are more frail and sick as a result of postponing care:
"And this creates massive challenges for the staff, because they're already short staffed. Due to COVID-19, staff are redeployed to other areas. And it must be remembered that the frontline staff are delivering a multitude of services: the normal daily health service that everyone expects, but also the largest vaccination programme in the history of the state, test and trace, and many other services that are being delivered with the same cohort of staff."
