A former Mayor of Clare says the HSE needs to make more use of Ennis General Hospital to alleviate overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick.
There are mounting calls in this county for the Department of Health to make a u-turn on its lack of commitment in the Slaintecare Action Plan for an elective facility in the Midwest.
The dust on HIQA’s 39-page report into its unannounced inspection at University Hospital Limerick back in March is now settling.
However, the backlash from elected representatives and the public isn’t relenting, with fresh calls on the HSE, the Department of Health and the UL Hospitals Group to urgently address the issues raised in the document.
HIQA’s report ‘noted’ that the UL Hospitals Group is one of the few groups in the country with no model 3 facility, which would provide for acute medical and surgical patients.
Part of UHL’s compliance plan in response to the inspection findings is to ensure Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s can take a minimum of 5 patients per day in the short term to promote service users’ dignity and privacy.
Ennis-based Fine Gael Councillor and former Clare Mayor Mary Howard insists the county town’s facility needs to be utilised further to ease the burden in Dooradoyle.
A West Clare member of the Regional Health Forum West believes no Government party can ‘stand over’ the situation at UHL, branding the current state of affairs in the region ‘inexcusable’.
A tender process for a new 96-bed block in Dooradoyle has been completed, though only around half of these are to be new beds, with the remainder replacing old ones.
Senior personnel within the UL Hospitals Group have estimated as many as 300 beds may be needed to ease capacity issues.
Kilkee-based Fianna Fail Councillor Cillian Murphy says both Government and HSE needs to ‘pull the trigger’ on new beds in UHL as soon as possible.
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