The Irish Hospital Consultants Association(IHCA) describes the decision to indefinitely cancel all scheduled care across University of Limerick Hospital Group(ULHG) as “unbelievable, unnecessary, and an abandonment of the people of the Mid West”
The ULHG announced on Wednesday evening that most elective care including endoscopy appointments are cancelled until further notice across all 5 of it’s hospitals to help alleviate overcrowding at UHL. The INMO reported 92 admitted patients on trolleys at UHL today. The Hospital Consultants say the cancellations will have severe consequences for patient health outcomes, and minimal impact on overcrowding.
The senior doctors warn that severe overcrowding and persistent waiting lists can only be addressed by long term and sustainable resourcing, alongside the opening of new beds – a total of 87 new beds are to open at UHL by June of 2025. Later this month the newly built Community Nursing Home in Nenagh is to begin a temporary use as a step down facility to assist with overcrowding in UHL. The 50 bed unit was completed in August 2023 and is intended to be a replacement for St Conlan’s Nursing Home in Nenagh.
The doctors are also concerned that the cancellation comes in the traditionally quieter summer period warning that this does not bode well for the region this autumn and winter, and will have severe knock-on consequences for patient health outcomes. UHL continues to suffer from under-resourcing in terms of beds and staffing, when compared with other large Model 4 hospitals according to the IHCA. The Mid West Region is unique in Ireland in that it has one Model 4(hospital with Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit) and three Model 2 Hospitals but no hospital with Model 3 status.
