Hospital overcrowding: People ‘terrified’ of going to University Hospital Limerick emergency department

Hospital campaigner Marie McMahon has warned that people in the midwest are terrified of having to go to the emergency department in University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

On Monday, UHL once again set a new record for patients on trolleys, with 130 people waiting for admission on Monday morning.

UHL, which has the worst overcrowding of any Irish hospital, set the previous trolley record of 126 patients waiting for admission, in April 2022.

The situation at the hospital’s emergency department had not changed in years, Ms McMahon said, adding everyone – from the Minister to the HSE, to hospital staff – was aware of the capacity issues but nothing had been done. It was a horrifying situation, she told RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland.

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Ms McMahon is involved with the Mid-West Hospital Campaign. She has been calling for the reopening of emergency departments in Ennis and Nenagh and St John’s, Limerick, since the death of her husband, Tommy Wynne, in 2018, after he spent 36 hours on a trolley in a corridor at the hospital suffering with stroke-like symptoms.

The situation remained appalling and had not improved, she said. “They’ve only steadily gotten worse over the last few years. And to be honest, I would rather, if I was in that position, die at home than on a trolley, because it’s possibly the most horrifying experience.

“Anybody you speak to from this area, from across the region, is terrified of the thought of going into the UHL emergency department. The hospital itself is fine, but it’s the lack of staff, the overcrowding, the trolley after trolley after trolley. And it’s nothing new. It’s something we’ve been campaigning for years and it seems like nobody is listening.

“We have one emergency department for over 400,000 people,” Ms McMahon said, adding politicians, clinicians, hospital management, the Minister for Health and the HSE were all aware of what the issues are in UHL.

“They make promises and they tell us things are going to get better, but they’re not getting any better.”

Sinn Féin spokesperson David Cullinane described the situation at the emergency department in UHL as “Groundhog Day”.