Seven ambulances were forced to wait outside University Hospital Waterford's Emergency Department last week due to overcrowding.
That's according to a report in the Irish Examiner, which quotes Deputy David Cullinane in saying the ambulances were "essentially acting as hospital trolleys".
"Chaotic scenes" were described at the local ED on December 27th and 28th.
UHW reported a very busy Christmas period with General Manager, Grace Rothwell, telling WLR this week that a high number of staff absences due to illness has made the situation more challenging.
It comes as the HSE says consultants, nurses and diagnostic teams will be asked to work extra hours over the coming weeks.
Dr Denis McCauley is Chairperson of the GP sub-committee of the Irish Medical Organisation.
He says they already work weekends but patients have no-where to be discharged to:
"My experience of consultants working in regional hospitals particularly is that they are available to assess and discharge patients at all times of the year.
"And I would imagine that they are similarly available now.
"The problem is that these people have nowhere to go so, it isn't the fact that there aren't consultants or diagnostic services taking place at the weekends - these are taking place at the weekends.
"People are being nominated to be discharged but there is nowhere to actually send them."
A National day of protest is to take place outside hospitals across the Country on Saturday January 21st next.
The objective of the demonstrations is to put pressure on the Government to address the current crisis in the hospital sector.
Aontú says the Government is closing wards instead of building new ones to address the increase in population.
TD Peadar Toibín says the number of hospital staff is decreasing when the number of patients is increasing:
"We know that 6,000 beds have actually been closed since 2008 and we also know that we have 30% too few doctors.
"We have 200 too few ICU beds and even the HSE admits that.
"So, what we need to do is add to capacity. We need significantly more hospital beds, significantly more hospital beds, significantly more doctors and more ICU beds."
For all your latest Waterford news and sport, click here.
