The Mid West Hospital Campaign Group is to put forward a candidate in the Limerick Constituency in the upcoming General Election. The campaign’s key demand is the re-opening of at least one of the A & E’s in Ennis, Nenagh or St John’s hospital.
Melanie Sheehan Cleary, the mother of Eve Cleary aged 21, who died in 2019 after being discharged from University Hospital Limerick, will be the Limerick city candidate. The group is said to be considering its options as regards standing candidates in Clare and North Tipperary constituencies.
In 2009 the hospitals in the Mid West Region were reconfigured with the A&E units in Nenagh, Ennis and St Johns closed resulting in the entire region being served by one Emergency Department based in University Hospital Limerick in Dooradoyle. The region is unique in Ireland in that there is no Model 3 status hospital in the area which would provide additional services to support the UHL the model 4 hospital (having an Emergency Department and an Intensive Care Unit). UHL has suffered from chronic overcrowding in it’s ED, patient deaths following the care they experienced in the ED has caused concern an HIQA has issued several highly critical reports in respect of the care provided in the ED.
Ms Sheehan Cleary says she is standing because despite her daughter’s death there has been no radical reform of health services in the region.
Charlotte Keane, a spokesperson for the Campaign group says “politicians aren’t listening” to the Group.
