Around 50 nurses have taken part in a protest at Galway University Hospital.
The protest was organised to highlight the pressures caused by a lack of beds and staff shortages at the hospital's emergency department.
Nurses at the hospital say working conditions are compromising patient privacy and dignity.
Management at the hospital yesterday said efforts were under way to hire up to 20 new staff.
Chief Executive of the West Northwest Hospital Group Bill Maher said the capacity and staffing problems at the emergency department will be dealt with.
He conceded that there were problems and said he was not pleased that patients or nurses had to deal with such pressure.
However, he said efforts were under way to address the staffing shortfall and that 75 new beds at the hospital would help to alleviate overcrowding in the emergency department.
The hospital group had a huge catchment area and the emergency department was now probably the busiest in the country, he said.
Irish Nurses and Midwives' Organisation representative Anne Burke said the facility was clearly not fit for purpose.
She said staff were extremely concerned about patient well-being and their inability to deal with people within internationally recognised time frames.
The union has called for a full review of the department to identify the scale of the pressure facing patients and staff.
It claims the number of patients on trolleys more than doubled last month, when compared with August 2013.
The situation in the emergency department was described as manageable today, with a small number of patients on trolleys.
Nurses at the protest stressed that patient care would not be compromised by today's demonstration as only staff on lunch breaks or those off-duty took part.
The demonstrators comprised of members of the INMO and members of SIPTU.
SIPTU has called for the Health Service Executive recruitment embargo on nursing staff and care assistants to be lifted.
