Emergency meeting sought over hospital ‘disaster’
Nenagh councillor Séamie Morris has called for an emergency meeting over the “total collapse” of emergency hospital services in the Mid West.
Record high attendances at the Emergency Department (ED) in University Hospital Limerick over recent days led to the declaration of a “major internal incident” at the hospital last Monday.
In a statement, UL Hospitals Group said the unprecedented level of ED attendance was driven by a surge in patients with respiratory infections, including Covid-19, flu and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). Actions that have been taken to address the situation include:
Extra staff including nurses and doctors have been asked to present to the hospital for duty;
Staff are being redeployed to care for additional patients in the ED;
Additional surge beds are being opened in Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s hospitals;
Converting day beds in UHL to inpatient beds;
Focus on discharging patients to home and the community;
Converting a ward in Croom Hospital for medical patients;
Only urgent elective surgery is going ahead in UHL over the coming days;
All outpatient appointments for UHL were cancelled for Tuesday, January 3. Anyone presenting to the ED with a less urgent condition was expected to face an “exceptionally long wait” for care.
“We urge the public to consider all available healthcare alternatives to ED,” the statement reads. “Less acutely unwell patients are asked to first consider our Injury Units, GPs, out-of-hours GP services and pharmacists before attending ED.
“Injury Units in Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s are operating as normal. Opening hours for Ennis and Nenagh Injury Units are 8am-8pm, and St John’s Injury Unit, 8am-7pm. For full contacts for the units, and the services available there, please see: https://www2.hse.ie/services/injury-units/
“We apologise to every patient who is currently experiencing a long wait for admission at UHL, and for the inconvenience and frustration this causes for patients’ loved ones. In addition, due to the high number of patients with flu and Covid-19, and a number of ongoing outbreaks, all visiting to UHL has been restricted. We regret the distress or inconvenience our visiting ban causes for patients and their loved ones, but it is necessary given the high levels of flu and Covid-19.”
The only exceptions to the ban are parents visiting children in hospital; people assisting confused patients (e.g. dementia); people visiting patients who are critically unwell or at end of life (on a case-by-case basis). All these exemptions are limited to one person per patient only.
Cllr Morris is requesting a meeting between the management of UHL, Mid-West TDs, HSE West board members, county council CEOs and Mid-West fire chiefs.
“With the total collapse of emergency hospital services serving the people of the Mid-West region and the complete lack of plan for the expected surge in patients that has now completely overwhelmed emergency hospital services in the area, it is now time for an emergency meeting to see how we can get accountability for this disaster,” Cllr Morris stated.