Limerick Regional Hospital at Crisis Point Again
Issued : Tuesday 8 December, 2009
Limerick City Labour T.D. & Spokesperson on Health Jan O’Sullivan has today expressed her deep concern regarding the current situation within the A&E Department of the Mid Western Regional Hospital. The situation in the A&E Department has once again reached crisis point with frontline staff struggling to manage patient numbers presenting for treatment.
With wards closed both in the Regional and St. Johns and after hours A&E cases presenting to the Regional from across the Mid West the existing A&E facilities simply cannot provide an acceptable level of care and attention to patients presenting for treatment. Recommendations from the much publicised Teamwork report that additional resources in terms of beds, medical assessment units, critical care units, and an isolation unit all remained to be fully implemented.
The crisis within the A&E Department is now spilling over into patient wards with trolleys and additional beds being squashed into hospital wards creating more problems in terms of patient care and privacy. It is simply impossible for medical and nursing staff to try and manage an ever growing demand on their services when at the same time ward and bed closures continue to occur both within the Regional and other hospitals such as St. Johns, Ennis and Nenagh hospitals.
The management of the Regional in agreement with the INO will have to undertake a fundamental review of operations so that we can address the overcrowding issue and also ensure that patient flow is managed in a professional safe and caring manner.
I am extremely concerned that the current unacceptable situation for both staff and patients will detiorate even further if decisive action is not taken by HSE management.
