The Medical Board of HSE Mid West has issued an unprecedented warning to the Health Minister that risks to patient care at University Hospital Limerick remain intolerable and unacceptable, despite repeated warnings from frontline clinicians, hospital management, national oversight bodies, and patient advocates.
In a statement to Clare FM, the Board says this is not a newly emerging crisis, but a long-standing and repeatedly documented failure to provide sufficient acute capacity across the Mid West health system.
They’re warning that Model 2 hospitals in Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s cannot solve the overcrowding crisis and the Midwest cannot continue operating permanently in crisis mode.
Doctors and surgeons within HSE Mid West are today calling on the Health Minister to take four actions, including establishing the Development Board for the region’s new acute hospital immediately and releasing emergency funding.
They’re also calling for recruitment restrictions to be lifted and for staff and beds the region desperately needs to be delivered.
Doctors warn that more than seven months after HIQA exposed serious and risks to patient care at Ireland’s busiest and most overcrowded hospital, driven by constrained bed capacity, the conditions identified in that report persist daily.
They have highlighted persistent warnings that the Mid West does not have the acute hospital capacity required to provide consistently safe care for a growing and aging population.
They insist that teams are doing everything possible to protect patients in extraordinarily difficult conditions, but that mitigation is not safety, escalation plans are not capacity and corridor care is not acceptable healthcare.
The Board has also expressed deep frustration and concern that repeated warnings from frontline staff and regional health leadership have not been matched by what it has described as sufficient urgency at Department of Health level and within senior national HSE leadership structures in Dublin.
The statement acknowledges additional funding allocated in recent years, but says these investments have not closed the gap in acute capacity and have largely been absorbed into maintaining an already overstretched system rather than correcting deficits.
It goes on to say that staff at Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s continue to provide exceptional care under sustained pressure, but these hospitals are not structured to absorb the emergency and acute care needs of the region.
Optimising Model 2 hospitals is important, it says, but it is not a substitute for the acute inpatient and emergency capacity this region has lacked for years.
The Medical Board of HSE Mid West is calling for action – not more reviews, not more delays and not more temporary measures for what it describes as a permanent crisis.
Full Statement From Medical Board Of HSE Mid West
The Medical Board of HSE Mid West today issues an unprecedented recommendation to the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, stating that risks to patient care at University Hospital Limerick remain intolerable and unacceptable, despite repeated warnings from frontline clinicians, hospital management, national oversight bodies, and patient advocates.
We say this is not a newly emerging crisis, but a long-standing and repeatedly documented failure to deliver sufficient acute capacity across the Mid West health system.
The doctors and surgeons of the HSE Mid West call for the following actions:
1. Immediate establishment of a fully-empowered HSE Mid West Development Board, with local leadership, clinicians, healthcare staff, and patient representatives, with full authority to drive delivery of the new hospital project.
2. Terms of reference guaranteeing a full, all-services acute hospital with a minimum of 400 beds in Phase 1 and long-term expansion capacity of at least 1,000 beds, co-located with the new maternity hospital.
3. Emergency 2026 funding to address escalating patient safety risks, including urgent recruitment of additional consultants, NCHDs, nurses, health and social care professionals, clerical staff, and technical staff.
4. Suspension of all HSE staffing ceilings and related restrictions across the Mid West until patient safety risks are stabilised and the region reaches parity with other HSE regions.
More than seven months after HIQA exposed serious and risks to patient care at Ireland’s busiest and most overcrowded hospital, driven by constrained bed capacity, we say the conditions identified in that report persist daily.
These include 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.
Despite repeated warnings, the HIQA findings, and the Government announcement of a new hospital last year, the region is still awaiting the establishment of the Development Board required to progress delivery of the new acute hospital.
Continued delays – in establishing the new Hospital Development Board and in advancing the new hospital – risk prolonging pressures already repeatedly identified across the health service. If the Minister has a chairperson in mind for the board, clarity is now urgently needed on when that appointment will be made and when the Hospital Development Board will be formally established to drive the project forward.
“This crisis did not emerge overnight, and it has not gone unrecognised,” said Mr Colin Peirce, Consultant Surgeon and Chairman of the Medical Board.
“Frontline staff, clinicians, and patient advocates have been warning for years that the Mid West does not have the acute hospital capacity required to provide consistently safe care for a growing and ageing population. Those warnings have been repeatedly escalated over many years. HIQA has confirmed them. Patient and staff continue to experience them every day.
Our teams are doing everything possible to protect patients in extraordinarily difficult conditions, but mitigation is not
safety. Escalation plans are not capacity. Corridor care is not acceptable healthcare.
Patients in the Mid West are waiting too long for beds, too long for treatment, too long for dignity and privacy, and too long for the safe care they deserve.
The people of the Mid West are being failed by a system that does not have enough acute hospital capacity to safely meet demand.”
We again highlight that frontline healthcare workers across the region have carried unsustainable pressure for years. The continued absence of urgent Government action risks normalising unsafe overcrowding as a permanent feature of healthcare delivery.
We are deeply frustrated and profoundly concerned that repeated warnings from frontline staff and regional health leadership have not been matched by sufficient urgency at Department of Health level and within senior national HSE
leadership structures in Dublin.
Years of delayed decision making, insufficient capital investment, and national staffing and funding constraints have left the Mid West disproportionately exposed compared to other regions, despite repeated identification and escalation of risks to patient care over many years.
While acknowledging that additional funding has been allocated in recent years, we say these investments have not closed the long-standing gap in acute capacity in the Mid West.
We note that funding has largely been absorbed into maintaining an already overstretched system rather than correcting the
structural deficit in beds, staffing, and infrastructure required to bring the region into parity with national standards of care.
Model 2 hospitals cannot solve this crisis.
While staff in Ennis, Nenagh, and St John’s Hospitals continue to provide
exceptional care under sustained pressure, these hospitals are not structured to absorb the emergency and acute care needs of the region.
The Mid West cannot continue operating permanently in crisis mode. Optimising Model 2 hospitals is important, but it is not a substitute for the acute inpatient and emergency capacity this region has lacked for years.
“The new hospital cannot remain a political announcement without delivery structures, timelines, funding, and urgency behind it,” says Professor Joe Devlin, Consultant Physician and Deputy Chairman of the Medical Board.
“There is now broad cross-party recognition of the need for a new acute hospital and expanded capacity in the Mid West. That shared position must now be reflected in the practical steps required to progress delivery.
Elected representatives across Government and Opposition in the region remain central to ensuring that national decision-making reflects the urgency expressed by clinicians and the lived reality of patients and staff.
This can no longer be reduced to politics. Healthcare decisions must be driven by patient safety, clinical integrity, and the protection of lives – not political calculation.
Healthcare decisions must never be shaped by political pressure or political convenience. They must be guided by evidence, compassion, and an absolute duty to protect patients and save lives.”
We conclude with a direct appeal to Government:
The people of the Mid West have waited long enough.
We need action, not more reviews, not more delays and not more temporary
measures for a permanent crisis.
• Establish the Development Board for our new acute hospital immediately.
• Release emergency funding.
• Lift recruitment restrictions.
• Deliver the staff and beds our region desperately needs.
