Political pressure mounts to expand services in Nenagh Hospital

POLITICAL pressure is mounting on the HSE to make greater use of Nenagh Hospital as North Tipperary and the rest of the State face a potentially three-pronged challenge of a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, a winter outbreak of influenza and an unprecedented backlog of people awaiting procedures.

Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill and Independent councillor Seamus Morris - a member of the HSE West Forum - say they have been waging an ongoing campaign to try to persuade the HSE to make better use of Nenagh, by expanding and re-introducing services withdrawn from the hospital over the past 15 or so years.
Councillor Morris said it would make perfect sense to reintroduce 24-hour emergency and intensive care services to Nenagh as centralisation of these workloads in University Hospital Limerick had not worked.
"Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of sense when it comes to running the HSE. Packing everyone into Limerick makes no sense at all," said Councillor Morris.
He said there was no logic in the HSE having spent tens of millions of euro on developing a new emergency department in Limerick for treating patients from North Tipperary when there existed "a perfectly good and fairly new" emergency department in Nenagh.
Councillor Morris said the new emergency department in UHL was called "a centre of excellence", but such a designation was a misnomer as Limerick frequently topped the list for patients on trollys waiting for treatment.
He said one of the ways to solve the health crisis in North Tipperary was to restore round the clock emergency and intensive care services in Nenagh. "This would be the right course of action to take, covid or not covid."
Councillor Morris added: "I would urge the HSE to bite the bullet and reverse reconfiguration and go back to what worked for our health system."
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill has revealed to The Guardian that he wrote to the new Health Minister Stephen Donnolly in the past fortnight seeking a ramping up of services in Nenagh to cope with the increased pressues on the health service sparked by the pandemic.
"The HSE has to take into account the fact that extra services are needed in Nenagh because the amount of people that are waiting for appointments is absolutely huge," said Deputy Cahill.
Unless more services were put in place in so called tier two hospitals such as Nenagh, he did not know how demand for care was going to be met, given the extra demands that the winter months almost invariably bring.
The Thurles based Fianna Fáil TD said detailed planning was needed to tease out how so-called second tier hospitals like Nenagh could play a vital part in dealing with the current and future huge demans of the health service.
He said Our Lady's Hospital in Cashel could also play a vital part in dealing with demand if the correct policies were put in place by the HSE.
"I will be lobbying hard to ensure that Nenagh will have greater resources over the coming winter so that we are ready to cope with whatever problems that may arise," said Deput Cahill.
Clare Independent TD Michael McNamara has also called on both Ennis and Nenagh hospitals to be given a greater input in meeting demands over the coming months.
University Hospital Limerick is the only hospital in the Mid West that currently treats acute patients.
All patients in the region with Covid-19 that require hospitalisation are sent to UHL, which Deputy McNamara has said puts a "huge burden" on that hospital.
Deputy McNamara in recent days confirmed that he had received confirmation from the HSE that it is considering proposals to expand the level of services delivered from tier two hospitals such as Ennis and Nenagh during the coming months.