Trolley crisis at Limerick hospital 'dangerous to staff and patients'

At what point does enough become enough, according to Sinn Féin representative Damian O’Donoghue in relation to the trolley crisis at University Hospital Limerick.

“Last Thursday there were 126 people on trolleys in Limerick Hospital. This is a new national record for any hospital in the country in one day. Many of those people are from north Tipperary.

"As part of my work with the Mid Western Hospital campaign we have spoken to a lot of these people and the individual stories are appalling. People left unattended, people waiting for treatment for up to 12 hours, patients being left without water for long periods of time and much more,” he said.

This was no fault of the staff who were doing amazing work under very difficult circumstances, he said.

The overcrowding was now such that it was dangerous to both staff and patients. Patients were being packed into this hospital like sardines, and nurses and doctors are being forced to treat sick patients on corridors and work in a very dangerously overcrowded environment, said Mr O'Donoghue.

“There has been a failure to act in a meaningful way to address this issue for years and the token measures to date have had a minimal impact,” he said.

Mr O’Donoghue said that this was made all the more frustrating when you considered that there was an excellent Emergency Department in Nenagh Hospital that was closed while the people of north Tipperary were promised a centre of excellence.

“There is no centre of excellence. There is a centre that has become a symbol of bad decisions by successive governments. All the while the people of Tipperary, Clare and Limerick are left with inadequate healthcare,” he said.

This Monday, UHL again accounted for the highest number of patients on trolleys, with 105 people waitig for a bed, amlost double the next highest figire of 57 at Cork University Hospital. 

There were nine people on trolleys in Tipperary University Hospital, with none in Nenagh.