Call for Naas hospital to expand to cope with bigger population

Overcrowding at Naas General Hospital is putting patient safety at risk, a councillor claimed.

Cllr Brendan Young complained that patients are regularly kept waiting on trolleys and staff have to deal with queues of people seeking treatment.

The independent politician from Celbridge said: "Ireland's acute bed capacity is 2.8 per 1,000 people while the OECD average is 4.8 so I'm calling  for an increase of acute bed capacity in Naas.

"I also call on the Government to acknowledge the underinvestment in health care and to increase spending in order to reinstate the 3,000 beds eliminated in the 1980's and prevent a deeper crisis in our health care system."