Record levels of overcrowding for this time of year are being experienced at the region’s main hospital today.
The latest figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation show there were 110 admitted patients waiting for beds at University Hospital Limerick this morning.
Nurses’ union, the INMO has today recorded the highest ever level of overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick for this time of year.
110 admitted patients were waiting for beds during morning rounds on the first day of August, 49 of those in the Emergency Department alone.
This number has only ever been exceeded at the Dooradoyle facility on five other occasions since records began; in January and April last year and March this year.
On a day when there were 463 admitted patients waiting for beds at hospitals across the country, University Hospital Limerick is once again the busiest, with 51 more patients waiting for beds than the next busiest facility; Cork University Hospital.
The INMO is reiterating it’s call on the HSE to outline very clearly what steps it’s taking to avoid overcrowding chaos in our hospitals this autumn and winter.
Statement from the UL Hospitals Group
University Hospital Limerick has for a sustained period been managing significantly high numbers of patients presenting to our Emergency Department, including many frail, elderly and other patients with complex care needs.
Every day during the month of July, an average of 220 people attended the ED at UHL. This far exceeds the 195 daily attendances of 2019, which was the last full year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The shortfall in patient bed capacity at UHL has been repeatedly acknowledged by all parties, and remains the fundamental driver of hospital overcrowding.
We continue to balance the needs of the most acutely ill patients on our emergency and urgent care pathways against the needs of our inpatients, and of patients waiting for scheduled care. All too often this can mean that admitted patients experience significant waits for a bed. This is not the standard of care we wish to provide for our patients, and we apologise to anyone who has been so impacted.
Staff at all levels across UL Hospitals Group are working hard to reduce these wait times.
We continue to follow our escalation plan to reduce pressure on the ED and improve patient flow across our sites. Measures that are taken on a daily basis include opening surge capacity across all sites; transferring patients on trolleys to our inpatient wards; reductions in scheduled care; additional ward rounds by medical teams to expedite discharges or identify patients suitable for transfer to Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s Hospitals; and working closely with our colleagues in HSE Mid West Community Healthcare in order to expedite discharges.
We are grateful for the support of government for the increase in bed capacity since the start of the pandemic, which has delivered at UHL alone an additional 98 inpatient beds and 10 critical care beds. However, we continue to lag behind other hospital groups in terms of bed capacity, with Deloitte having identified a shortfall of 302 new and replacement inpatient beds to be delivered by 2036.
Construction of a new 96-bed block at UHL is ongoing and will take two years to complete. Approximately half its new beds will be additional bed stock, with the remainder replacing beds that are currently in multi-occupancy nightingale wards in the older parts of UHL We also the welcome recent developments in the planning process for enabling works for the second 96-bed block, and are grateful to the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach for their support for both these essential projects for the Midwest region.
