Doctors say up to 350 patients are dying each year as a direct result of overcrowding.

Medical experts are calling for a significant increase in capacity – and say we need up to half a dozen new hospitals to meet the demands of our population.

The calls have been made at the Irish Hospital Consultants Association’s annual meeting in Kilkenny this weekend.

Emergency department consultant Dr Fergal Hickey says our health system is leading to needless deaths: “Capacity in system is a major problem so we are short on certain physical elements of the hospital service, I mean you will know, that the evidence is with that with the emergency department crowding somewhere between 100 and 350 patients per year die who wouldn’t otherwise die.

“So there is a similar scenario when it comes to critical care beds and if there was a delay in getting to an intensive care unit of more than six hours than your mortality goes up.”