An Ennis health campaigner claims the failure by the HSE to provide additional hospital beds in the Mid-West only serves to reinforce the belief that patients locally are treated as second-class citizens.
Responding to a parliamentary question from Independent TD, Michael McNamara, the HSE confirmed that none of UL Hospital Group’s six facilities would receive any of the 411 acute and 36 ICU beds scheduled to be brought on stream this year.
It comes as University Hospital Limerick is consistently the most overcrowded hospital in the country, with 91 waiting for a bed at the Dooradoyle facility at the beginning of this week.
Former member of the HSE’s Regional Health Forum West, Councillor Ann Norton, believes the problems at the region’s main hospital will never be resolved without increasing bed capacity.
