LIMERICK’S Mid Western Regional Hospital has scored three red cards under the latest Healthstats assessment. The latest national Healthstat figures show that the hospital is 12th from the top in a national league of staff absenteeism figures taken from 31 hospitals in September. The city hospital’s rate of staff being off sick is running at 5 per cent, 1.5 per cent more than the HSE’s national target of 3.5 per cent. The hospital also got red marks against it under the headings of A and E admissions and finances/resources, meaning, under the terms of the assessment that “urgent attention’ needs to be paid in those areas.
The latest news comes as it was also revealed that the hospital is €15 million over budget and figures show that there were 94 patients on trolleys in the emergency department over a five day period last week.
Commenting on the Healthstat news, a spokesperson for the HSE said that there are “many other” indicators of the performance of the health services.
“It is recognised that the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick has been operating at above full occupancy for an extended period. Such a situation is neither desirable nor efficient. To address these issues management have put together a series of actions which are designed to improve patient throughput and these actions are ongoing,” the spokesperson said.
“To further assist patient flow we will shortly introduce an acute medical programme which will mean the establishment of a 17 bed acute medical unit, due to open in mid January 2012. It will reduce pressure on the Emergency Department, and improve access to services for adults who present with a wide range of medical conditions. It will also provide a dedicated location for rapid assessment, diagnosis by senior doctors and commencement of appropriate treatment,” he added.
Addressing the levels of absenteeism, the spokesperson said these are being tackled and concerning finances, the €15 million over run is an improvement on the €20 million which the books showed at the end of May.
Area manager Bernard Gloster commented, “On the publication of the October accounts I expect the September position to have been substantially improved and we are working towards a position at the end of the current year which should, at minimum, be no worse than the position at the end of 2010 whilst acknowledging we had a substantial budget reduction in 2011”.
