University Hospital Limerick pressures
Mattie McGrath cited a Deloitte report and described ongoing chaos and staffing shortages at UHL and related hospitals. The Taoiseach said the HSE has sent in a team, patient flow has improved somewhat, extra staff have been recruited, and the winter initiative will address the situation further.
We have another damning report from Deloitte on the University Limerick Hospitals Group and University Hospital Limerick, UHL but it is going to gather dust on some desk or in some pigeonhole. There is chaos in UHL on a daily basis since the closure of the emergency department in Nenagh Hospital as well St John's Hospital in Limerick and Ennis Hospital. We were told last week quite glaringly of the lack of redeployment and re-engagement of specialist nurses and a group of other people in that hospital. It is crying out for extra staff. Staff are voting with their feet and leaving and the trauma for patients is enormous. Councillor Séamie Morris of Nenagh is on to me on a regular basis about it and so are many others. It is in appalling contrast to what Deputy Shanahan raised about UHW. Something must be done here. We cannot have this Deloitte report, which was done at enormous expense, gathering dust. The management must be held to account as well so we can have services for the people.
Comment on this
The HSE has put a team into UHL to assist with the management of patient flow within the hospital over the past two months. It has had some beneficial impacts in increasing patient flow and the management of patients within certain wards and so forth. Additional staff have also been recruited. We are very conscious of the pressures that are on emergency departments at the moment. The winter initiative, which the Minister for Health will launch in the next ten days, will contain measures to deal with the situation in Limerick and those in other emergency departments as well.