Unless the bed capacity issue is resolved in emergency departments they will "always be in difficulty", the president of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine has warned.
Dr Fergal Hickey, a Consultant in Emergency Medicine, also said that overcrowding leads to a risk of "increased mortality".
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said there is a need to look "critically" at those aged over 75 who are "greatly over-represented" in the numbers waiting on hospital trolleys.
"Our issue is we have two thirds of the number of acute hospital beds of the OECD average so we are clearly very short when it comes to beds," Dr Hickey said.
He said that is reflected in the experiences of Cork and Cavan following a report published by HIQA on hospitals in these counties.
It found delays of up to 48 hours for patients in emergency departments waiting to be admitted for further treatment at Cork University Hospital.
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Dr Hickey said a support team being deployed to an emergency department might make some difference but the fundamental issue is the inability to find a hospital bed in a timely fashion when someone requires one.
"That won't be solved by any number of committees or expert groups," Dr Hickey added.
He said the report is "striking" in that it comments favourably on efforts made by staff in emergency departments "to do their best in impossible situations".
However, he warns that nursing and medical staff are not able to do this "indefinitely" and that junior doctors are leaving the country "in their droves".
"We are seeing loss of nursing staff and medical staff from emergency departments around the country."
While he welcomes the Health Minister's decision to appoint additional consultants in Emergency Medicine, he said that takes a long time and that terms and conditions of the consultant contracts in countries like Australia continue to be more appealing.
Read more: '80 hours a week' - Why junior doctors are leaving Ireland for Australia
Three HIQA reports published yesterday
Director of Healthcare with the Health Information and Quality Authority Sean Egan has said that waiting times from when a patient has completed treatment in the emergency department to their actual admission varied from two to 58 hours.
This is one of the findings in a new HIQA report, one of three published yesterday.
Speaking to RTÉ's Drivetime, Mr Egan said that it is an "extremely long period of time for anyone to wait in an emergency department".
Inspections were carried out in June and July 2022 at Cork University Hospital, St Columcille's Hospital and Cavan and Monaghan Hospital.
Mr Egan said: "Throughout the inspections we found some good practice and also areas for improvement.
"We've been engaging with all of the hospitals, including Cork University Hospital, to address the specific issues that we have identified.
"Each has produced a compliance plan and we are following up with them to ensure that those plans are implemented."
INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said that since HIQA carried out its inspection at CUH, 4,469 patients have been on trolleys.
"The overall message here is that our hospital capacity is not sufficient," she said.
Speaking on the same programme, she said: "The team that the minister is sending in must be supported to make very serious decisions.
"It is not an option to say 'we don't have enough beds, we're going to continue to provide unsafe care and care that is actually going to be harmful for people'."
