Risks to patient care at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) “remain intolerable and unacceptable, despite repeated warnings”, the hospital’s medical board has said.
In a recommendation to Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, the board said this was not a “newly emerging crisis, but a long-standing and repeatedly documented failure to deliver sufficient acute capacity across the midwest health system”.
The doctors and surgeons in the midwest region, which covers Clare, Limerick, and north Tipperary, are calling for the establishment of a development board for a new acute hospital immediately, the release of emergency funding, for recruitment restrictions to be lifted, and the provision of more beds.
Conditions of “severe overcrowding, excessive trolley numbers, delayed admissions, exhausted staff and an emergency system operating without the acute capacity required to safely meet demand across the region,” which were identified in a Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) report last September, persist daily, said the medical board in a statement.
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Prof Joe Devlin, consultant physician and deputy board chairman, said the difference in “manpower numbers” and beds is “stark” in the midwest region.
He said it is the least staffed region in the State, yet UHL provides more acute care than any other Irish hospital. He said this affects patients as they have to travel further for services, may seek care privately and extends waiting times.
UHL is consistently one of the most overcrowded hospitals in the State. It came under particular public scrutiny following the death, in December 2022, of Aoife Johnston (16), who waited more than 13 hours for antibiotics to treat suspected sepsis.
Earlier, Devlin told RTÉ’s News at One that overcrowding can pose multiple risks as well as “more serious” potential hazards such as medical error. Devlin said staff in the region are “grappling” with these risks “day in, day out”.
As an example of the understaffing, Devlin cited the HSE West and North West regions having 20 gastroenterologists looking after about 700,000 people, whereas the midwest region looks after some 400,000 and only has six gastroenterologists.
To bring the midwest region to parity with others, he said, it would need to double the number of consultants and increase all other staff numbers.
“There’s an urgent requirement to act to mitigate that risk. Yet, here we are seven months later from the publication of Hiqa’s [Health Information and Quality Authority] report.”
Devlin said the problem of the region not having enough acute beds has clearly been identified.
“That’s despite us having extra beds up on the wards as well, so there are trolleys in corridors all around the hospital ... We’re way behind the curve in the midwest.”
He said the board has an “uneasy feeling” that decisions are being made in Dublin without any representatives from the region being present. He said he would be happy to speak with Carroll MacNeil “at any time.”
Limerick Labour TD Conor Sheehan said patient safety concerns at UHL must be urgently addressed.
“The statement from the chair of the board is shocking but not surprising because despite the Minister’s announcement of a new hospital site at Raheen Business Park and the implementation of the recommendations of the Hiqa review, the outstanding issues at UHL remain and nothing has essentially changed,” he said.
The Health Service Executive and Department of Health were contacted for comment.
