'We were sold a pup'

“We were sold a pup” and “treated like guinea pigs”. That's the reaction this week by local TD Alan Kelly to the serious overcrowding of the region's main acute hospital.

As the first week of January left almost a record 100 patients stranded on trolleys and without a bed at University Limerick Hospital (UHL) and nurses in tears stretched beyond human limits, the Labour Party TD has echoed what his own constituents are saying. “What is happening currently is a travesty for the people of Tipperary, Clare and Limerick,” he declared.

Reacting to the hospital being forced to declare a “Major Internal Incident” on January 2 when it again topped the league for the highest number of patients on a trolleys, at 97, Kelly said: “We in the Mid West were the guinea pigs for testing HSE reconfiguration for the rest of the country. We were sold a pup and it has not worked,” he declared.

Meanwhile, the chronic overcrowding now evident for years at the hospital continued this week with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation recording 48 patients on trollys on Monday - once again the highest in the State.

Kelly said the overcrowding was entirely predictable given past experiences at the hospital.

Yet he defended the decision taken 15 years ago to create a centre of excellence in UHL for cancer care and other disciplines.

That, he said, was a correct decision, but what was not right was the move to close local A&Es and critical care units in hospitals in Nenagh, Ennis and Saint John's in Limerick before the infrastructure was in to cater for the consequent additional influx of patients to UHL.

"I warned of this at the time and we are now paying for this," he said.

Management and staff, who were working all hours, were in no way to blame. They were trying to make something work that just can't work.

"The area covered in the Mid West is just too big for a hospital network conformed the way it currently it," said Kelly. "UHL has less consultants, staff and beds pro-rata than other similar sized hospitals."

MORE CAPACITY

He added: "In the long term, in the Mid-West we need more capacity, more beds, more consultants, more staff and more transportation. This is plainly obvious.

"We also need a elective-only hospital in the Mid-West. This could be based in Limerick, or indeed Nenagh where there is ample space beside the current hospital which is close to the M7 motorway. We also need better transportation in a rebooted ambulance and paramedic service.

"However in the short term, there needs to be a complete refocus on better community care outcomes. The relationship between acute and community care needs to be a hand-in-glove relationship, especially to facilitate timely acute discharges and keeping people living at home as long as possible."

Kelly said the Government needed to increase the pay and work conditions of staff and purchase the privately owned Barrington's Hospital in Limerick to increase elective capacity.

He called for an immediate massive recruitment drive of consultants and staff and cooperation from all sectors of the health service to make the sector workable.

"The Government often derides the opposition for not offering solutions. I’m offering some. It’s beyond time they listened," said the Portroe based TD.

Meanwhile, in a statement the Nenagh Needs Its A&E Campaign, part of the Midwest Hospital Campaign grouping, welcomed Friday's decision by the HSE to open the Medical Assessment Unit at Ennis Hospital from Monday of this week to certain medically appropriate emergency patients rather than send them to UHL.

"This small step is a complete vindication of our position over several years that downgraded hospitals of the Mid-West do indeed have a role to play in the delivery of emergency healthcare in the region," said the group.

It added that the move was "a stunning reversal" of the position long held in public by certain senior management figures in the UL Hospitals Group who had consistently pointed out that the days of the delivery of emergency healthcare in local hospitals were over.

'TERRIFYING DEVELOPMENT'

It said the escalation to a Major Internal Incident at UHL on January 2 marked a terrifying development.

"Communities across our three counties are now left with the wreckage of a once functional network of emergency departments," it added.

The group said the crisis at UHL followed "the near collapse of the Shannondoc service during the entire Christmas period".

"We demand that the management of Shannondoc come forward and explain the lack of preparedness for what was predicted by medical experts and the HSE to be a very challenging winter and Christmas period." Criticising the role of the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, in his management of the situation, the group declared that crisis that unfolded last week and continues to unfold was predicted months in advance by a number of experts within the government and the HSE.

Separately, Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill said he would push the minister to make the provision to allow certain categories of emergency patients to be treated in Ennis now extended to Nenagh Hospital.

Deputy Michael Lowry said enhanced services were needed in Model 2 hospital like Nenagh to meet the needs of the region. "I will continue to raise the growing need for additional services at Nenagh Hospital throughout the coming Dail term in light of the catastrophe we are currently witnessing," he said.

The HSE has been forced to abandon its plan to lift the suspension of day case surgeries in Nenagh Hospital this week.

It said Nenagh was one of four hospitals in the region operating at or above capacity as hospitals across the Mid-West manage a spike in sickness mainly associated with Covid, influenza and other respiratory illnesses.