Record-breaking levels of overcrowding have been recorded at the region’s main hospital once again, in the wake of the bank holiday weekend.
The latest INMO figures show there were 124 patients waiting for beds at University Hospital Limerick during morning rounds, 63 of those in the Emergency Department alone.
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The overall figure is almost four dozen more than the next busiest facility and is the second highest level of overcrowding ever recorded at any hospital in the country by the nurses’ union.
Today members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation are meeting in Co. Kerry calling for overcrowding and under-staffing in hospitals to be urgently addressed.
UL Hospitals Group Statement
The Emergency Department (ED) at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) continues to experience high levels of demand, with daily attendances averaging significantly above the levels recorded prior to the pandemic.
During the month of April, average daily attendances at the department were 227, compared with the 195 recorded in 2019, the last full year prior to the pandemic.
Hospital staff experienced four particularly busy days over the long Bank Holiday weekend, with 276 patients attending last Friday, followed by 195 on Saturday, 184 on Sunday, 199 on the bank holiday Monday and 264 on Tuesday. These attendances are at levels significantly in excess of what is typical for weekends.
With UHL and all hospitals in the Group also caring for high numbers of inpatients, we have continued working to our escalation plan to create surge capacity and maximise numbers of inpatient beds. Additional ward rounding continues in UHL to identify appropriate patients for discharge or transfer Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s Hospital. We also work with HSE Mid West Community Healthcare to further expedite suitable discharges home or to community care beds.
None of this is to in any way minimise the inconvenience to admitted patients who are waiting for hospital beds. We apologise to all impacted patients. We are doing everything possible to maximise patient flow and minimise wait times.
As we work to balance the high demands on ED with the needs of inpatients while safely maintaining time-critical and other elective surgical activity, we remind the public to continue first considering all available healthcare alternatives to ED, as long waits in the department are inevitable for patients with less than urgent conditions.
Anyone with a serious injury or unexpected illness should come to ED or call 999/112. Less acutely unwell patients are asked to first consider our Injury Units, GPs, out-of-hours GP services and pharmacists before attending ED.
Injury Units in Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s are operating as normal. Opening hours for Ennis and Nenagh Injury Units are 8am -8pm and St John’s Injury Unit 8am-7pm. For full contacts for the units, and the services available there, please see: https://www2.hse.ie/services/injury-units/
As highlighted in the Deloitte Report, the shortage of acute bed capacity is the fundamental driver of hospital overcrowding in the Midwest.
We’re grateful for the support of government for the increase in bed capacity since the start of the pandemic. In addition, construction of the new 96-bed block development is ongoing at UHL.
We welcome the recent favourable comments of the Taoiseach recently towards a second 96-bed block that’s provided for in the UHL site masterplan. This block is currently being planned with HSE Capital & Estates. We expect that plans will be submitted to the HSE nationally for the second 96-bed block in the coming weeks.
