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LAST UPDATE | 23 Oct 2023
THE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL Limerick Group has issued an apology to patients facing long waiting times for a bed after the Irish Nurses and Midwives Union (INMO) reported that overcrowding levels at the hospital were record-breaking this morning.
The INMO said that 130 patients were waiting on trolleys for beds at the hospital this morning, which is the highest the figure has been in the hospital since the union started its trolley count in 2004.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the hospital group said that overcrowding levels are “far in excess of where we want to be”.
“We apologise to every one of our patients who faces a long wait time for an inpatient bed,” the hospital group added.
It clarified that there was a total of 87 patients waiting outside of designated bed areas across the hospital this morning, including 24 boarded in the hospital’s Acute Medical Assessment Unit, and 34 patients on trolleys in inpatient wards.
In addition, The number of admitted patients on trolleys on corridors was 39, with the 25 other admitted patients either in designated bed spaces in single rooms and cubicles.
The hospital group added that it is following its escalation framework to deal with the overcrowding, and reviewing elective activity at the hospital on a daily basis as it is working to maximise surge capacity, while ensuring that time critical cases can proceed as scheduled.
“Ongoing measures include opening surge capacity across all sites; transferring patients on trolleys to our inpatient wards; 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,” the hospital group added in its statement.
It urged everyone in the Midwest to reduce pressure on the emergency department at the hospital by attending the correct medical facility for their level of need, and for the level of urgency of their case.
INMO Assistant Director for Industrial Relations for the Midwest, Mary Fogarty said that today’s record-breaking figure “comes as no surprise” to the unions members “who have been working in overcrowded and understaffed wards with no reprieve for years on end”.
Fogarty said: “The fact that there are more patients on trolleys across the hospital itself than in the emergency department itself is making the provision of safe and timely care impossible.”
The union’s assistant director said that patient flow out of the emergency department is currently proving difficult due to the volume of trolleys in the hospital.
“Our members are burnt out and demoralised as a direct result of their working conditions. It is impossible for them to provide safe care in a working environment that is persistently dangerous,” she added.
“INMO members feel that none of the interventions directed by hospital management have had any positive impact to date.”
Fogarty called on the hospital management and the HSE to outline targeted interventions in order to “take the pressure off our members for the sake of patient safety”.
Sinn Féin TD for Limerick City Maurice Quinlivan said that the overcrowding is “a damning indictment of the Government’s health policies”.
“For perspective, that’s almost the same number of people packed into UHL on trolleys, as there are beds in Nenagh, Croom and Ennis hospitals combined. It’s absolutely scandalous,” Quinlivan said.
These aren’t just statistics, these are real people in need of urgent medical care.”
Quinlivan said that health minister Stephen Donnelly needs to “get his head out of the sand” and travel to Limerick to meet with those affected – who the TD claims he has had significant consultations with over the last number of months.
Labour Party TD Duncan Smith highlighted that the HSE’s recruitment shortage may hemorrhage the issue and labelled the overcrowding as “outrageous”.
The party’s heath spokesperson said: “Failure to tackle the systemic crisis in health will lead to poorer health outcomes for patients, and we already know that many people delay going to their local A&E for fear of adding to the overcrowding issue.”
“It should not be for patients, or hospital workers, to worry about the chronic failures in health. The Minister and this Coalition must step up and provide a pathway to delivering safe care over the weeks, months and years ahead,” he added.
The Journal reported in June that an unannounced inspection of the hospital carried out in February by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) found that 72 patients were on trolleys and chairs.
In January, a “major internal incident” was announced as UHL became overwhelmed with patient numbers.
The downgrading of Ennis Hospital, as well as other similarly sized hospitals in Limerick city and Nenagh, has been highlighted by doctors and health campaigners in the Mid-West as the key factor behind the overcrowding.
Figures from the INMO’s trolley watch found 563 patients nationally are on trolleys today. Twenty-three percent of the patients are in University Hospital Limerick.
To get updates on the situation at UHL, you can check @HSELive and @ULHospitals on Twitter/X or hse.ie for updates.
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Time to reopen Ennis and Nenagh and stop this madness of people having to go to Limerick for their point of access to healthcare for the Mid West Region……
@Luka Roche: Great – two more hospitals, how much will that cost? Can I make a suggestion? Run the well funded, well staffed, well resourced hospital that is there PROPERLY. Get rid of vested interests, union interference and the cushy job brigade. It’s sickening to see the people who need the hospital, the service users, are treated like SH one T. There’s something seriously wrong there.
@Luka Roche: fully agree.
@If you’re: can I just ask this so,
If there was serious accident in Shannon Airport, Where would all the casualties go to? Ennis is closed?? and Limerick is overflowing with seriously sick people…
Ennis and Nenagh Hospitals were open fully functioning Hospitals until Mary Harney thought it was good idea to introduce reconfiguration on the Mid West as a test case and it has been dismal failure. They are trying to do this in Navan and Portlaoise by removing all services in these hospitals and move them to Drogheda and Tullamore…
No more
80th worst healthcare system in the world strikes again.
FFFG has hurt so many people.
@Chris O’Brien: An Irish Times article claims that Ireland ranked 80th (from the top, not the bottom – not ’80th worst’), but the link it gives suggests that Ireland is actually sixth best.
Search for ‘Revealed: Countries With The Best Health Care Systems, 2023′.
@Brendan O’Brien: 80th from the top is 80th worst.
An HSE upper upper has said that figure is correct.
Newtalk also uses that figure.
But sure, let’s be honest.
Do YOU honestly think there are only FIVE better healthcare systems in the entire world?
That must be some fantasy.
In actual fact, our ranking has long been skewed by the fact that the calculations use GDP as part of the measurement, and Ireland’s GDP is notoriously a piece of fiction, because it includes BILLIONS being washed through our taxe haven.
Remove that – which is what the data does for the 80th worst, and viola! Our ranking matched the reality we all experience.
“Professor Curley said a certain level of “trickery” could make it seem that Ireland is actually below average for health spending.
“If you consider GDP, we’re actually below the EU and OECD average. But, that’s unrealistic for Ireland since our GDP per capita is so high,” he said.
“A better measure is Gross National Income (GNI), and we’re running about two percentage points above the OECD average.”
Despite this, Professor Curley said Ireland ranks number 80 in the world for performance.
“So by any objective measure, we’re possibly the worst performing health system in the Northern Hemisphere,” he said.”
No go investigate well-performing healthcare systems and see if they look anything like ours: they don’t.
Instead of pushing a fantasy, join us in reality.
@Chris O’Brien: ’80th from the top is 80th worst.’
By your upside-down system of thinking, Arsenal is the second-worst team in the Premier League. Don’t tell Mikel Arteta.
How can you be taken seriously if you’re incapable of grasping such a simple concept?
@Chris O’Brien: As for how Ireland ranks, it depends on who one listens to. I quote:
A 2018 study published in The Lancet and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that Ireland provided the 11th best healthcare in the world.
That’s 12 places above the UK, and there are many reasons to believe you’ll receive superior care on the other side of the Irish Sea.
Ireland has more hospital beds per person than the UK, according to the OECD and Statista, and a lower child mortality rate, according to the World Bank.
It doesn’t stop there, either. Ireland also has a lower avoidable mortality rate, diabetes rate, and rate of self-reported poor health among its citizens, according to a different OECD report.
There are also 30.9 doctors per 10,000 people, placing Ireland above nations including Norway, the US, and the UK, which has 28 doctors per person.
Ireland’s figure is also going up – the country had 10,018 doctors in 2019, a 37.8% increase since 2010, according to Irish Department of Health data.
Ireland has managed to pull all of this off while spending 7.2% of its GDP on healthcare – noticeably less than the UK’s 10%.
@Brendan O’Brien: I couldn’t find anything after searching. Your a bare faced liar brendan.
@: I would post the link if the Journal allowed it. It’s not my fault if you can’t use Google.
@Brendan O’Brien: I’d ask everyone reading this to ask themselves:
Could Ireland REALLY have the 11th best health care system in the world?
Could 185 countries really be worse than our system?
If you think the answer is yes, vote FFFG.
If you think something fishy might be going on with those numbers, maybe do some googling.
You might for instance discover that the UK system is astonishingly bad by some metrics (hospital beds per capita is the one Brendan cherry picked) but realtiver to the EU average (5.0) we’re near the bottom (2.9).
Germany is at 7.8.
So which seems more true?
We’re great, because we’re doing better than one of the worst? Or we’re doing poorly, because we’re no where near the best.
Maybe ask as well: Why is Brendan choosing to cherry pick stats to “win” this argument?
Do he think we’re all idiots?
Maybe his pay check comes from FFFG?
Who knows.
Reference: “Figure 7.23. Hospital beds per 1 000 population, 2010 and 2020″ from the OECD library.
@Brendan O’Brien: You link is BS as you are cherry picking data, deliberately comparing Ireland to one off the worst in Europe.
How are we compared to Somalia? Much better? Vote FFFG.
@Chris O’Brien: I didn’t cherry-pick. I quoted.
Ireland has the 20th highest life expectancy of 201 countries in the world, which might suggest that we don’t have the 80th-best health service, but what do I know?
@Chris O’Brien: Don’t mind Brendan Chris! I have to admit, I’ve found fault with nothing I’ve seen you say anywhere on here and I’m highly critical of the ill-informed opinions of many around here, those who blindly parrot the last bit of nonsense someone told them. Those people reeeally hate that kind of thing!
Sensemaking is largely a lost art!
@Brendan O’Brien: Don’t mind Chris,he just loves bashing Ireland,are things perfect in Ireland No,there are a lot of things to improve Yes but are we a great country and I am proud to say I’m from Ireland and live in and work in Ireland,the amount on here that will make out we are some third world country is mad,we are a small not free island on the edge of Europe that is punching above our weight.
@Brendan O’Brien: they are the 2nd worst team… they’re rubbi5h.
@Brendan O’Brien: for the amount of money that is spent on the healthcare budget, it is a total shambles. Donelly hasn’t a clue.
I had the misfortune of being an impatient in June. I was in a private room – by necessity as I was prone to infection after a complicated surgery. A girl on a trolly outside my room was there 3 days before she got a bed. She had diarrhoea and getting sick. She was told use the toilet on my room. Was embarrassing for her and me. She even had to charge her phone/wash in my room. That was a new ward (8B). UHL not fit for purpose.
@Maniac 2000: thats terrible What is minister Donnelly doing .We need a senior minister here in limerick.This wouldnt happen back in Dessie O Malleys time.
@Willie Marty: O’Malley never did a damn thing for Limerick.
@Mark Reville: incorrect analysis there Mark Im afraid.
@Willie Marty: Big Jim Kemmy was the man.
Tom O’ Donnell was the outstanding public representative for Limerick of that era.
@Willie Marty: are Willie o dea, Patrick o donoghie and niall Neil John Collins a figment of my imagination?
The latter two are in Limerick west and none of them are a senior minister.
People of Limerick have returned FF and FG candidates for decades. Willie O Dea is the safest FF seat in the country. What has that done for Limerick? Transport system south of the city is terrible, the city centre itslef is in freefall, schools so crowded that there were not enough places last September, a hospital so crowded that you could die before actually getting help, and a suicide rate that nobody wants to talk about.
@Keyser Söze: As I’ve been saying, we Irish have been voting West Brit for over 100 years.
@Chris O’Brien: and the real problem is no alternative. sF are a carbon copy of these market based parties. They will be no different. I vote PBP but it looks as if they want to team up with SF. Why, I don’t know as they must be well able to see where that will lead. So, who to vote for if you want this situation addressed meaningfully?
@Keyser Söze: And SF,GP,PD, independent and labour,the SF seat in the north side of the city wouldn’t know where the south side is,I live on the south side of the city and plenty of transport,have you not seen the huge schools builds going on,l,if you’re going to complain at least moan about the hospital which is a huge problem
@Daniel Roche: Which two parties have learned nothing from being in power for 100 years ?
Dogs in street know Limerick needs 500 more acute beds. HIQA reported on it in 2009 – over 14 years ago.
HSE cant deliver that – only Govt. Why doesnt INMO call that out?
@James Gorman: They could.
If they reopened those hospitals they closed.
The state always takes every opportunity to close hospital – e.g. recessions – but never reopens them when the economy recovers, or even when it booms.
This states also seems to believe that the hospital exists for the benefit of the state, or maybe the consultant engaged by the hospital. The hospital certainly does not exist for the benefit of the patient.
Otherwise the closure of local hospital in the name of an imaginary efficiency would not happen.
Donnelly to organise another task force.
@Jp Cleary: just asking did he not set one up around 12 months ago to deal with this exact problem.
@Jp Cleary: Donnelly couldn’t organise a pis up in a burey
Only worse it will get now they have the recruitment freeze in place…. All of this was entirely predictable but yet again no accountability.
The country’s in a awful state with Ffg at the helm, We want change!
@: We don’t tho.
Since the foundation of the state, successive governments have pawned off the nations health care to the Catholic Church and then vested interests who had profits in mind . Mix that up with nepotism and cronyism and it might start to explain why our health system isn’t joined up
@Robert Halvey: Education too.
That way we were trained to accept what they did. What both the Church, and the state trained by that Church, did to us.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: and RTE, the unholy troika!
Goes nicely alongside the record amount of homeless people. Bang up job FFG!
Emergency patients flown in from Gaza
@liam: They should be ya!
@liam: Proper order, inshallah!
FFG would only do it for Late Late Brigade votes and virtue!
Are all of those attending A & E actually seriously ill enough to warrant emergency care ? I am sure many could be treated in their own GP’s surgeries or at an out of hours doc service. We certainly need more of those, available twenty four hours.
Also, Monday tends to be the day of the week on which these incidences of overcrowding occur. What does that tell us?
Over consumption of drink and drugs at weekends is a contributory factor.
@Mark Reville: I read an article recently about the overcrowding in Limerick hospital and when they drilled down in the data they discovered that the vast majority could have gotten care in the minor injury units in Nenagh and Ennis and there would have been no overcrowding in Limerick.
The INMO seem to think this is a problem so the first thing the HSE should do is remove all the nurses shorter working week/jobsharing arrangements as that way there’ll be more nurses available. Can’t see them going for that though.
Madness. Where the hell are the priorities. Instead of mouthing off to the ambassador of a country who has been systematically attacked from all sides for decades from enemies seeking to exterminate it and supporting our presidents obvious jew phobia, our elected officials should be looking inward at resolving our lovely ongoing health care crisis. It’s a shambles.
I’d say Stephen Donnelly’s bald head is just in overdrive. Surely just given another billion or 2 and he could sort this out.
Well if people exercised more , drank less, smoked less and stopped using drugs, maybe our health system could cope better. But know people eat , drink, smoke away and expect the health system to fix them up. Ireland has one of the highest obesity levels in Europe, high levels of alcohol consumption, so what do you expect. 30% of beds in our acute system are taken up with smoking , alcohol disease or obesity
Quick issue an apology, that’ll do fine for now!
An apology ?????
Sure that makes it all grand then.
Circus monkeys the lot of them
Niall Neil John Collins, Willie o dea, Patrick o Donovan, all limerick TDs, career failures this is on ye.
@Michael o connor: isnt patrick o donovan some kind of junior minister for floods He would want to get the ring out.
And there is the following useless apology.
have your say