AT least fifteen ambulances queued up outside University Hospital Limerick this afternoon as high levels of patient overcrowding were recorded in the emergency department.
According to figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), there were 81 patients lying on trolleys in the corridors of the emergency department and on wards today.
There were 90 on trolleys waiting for beds at the hospital on Tuesday and 72 on Monday.
Sources in the ambulance service said the situation has been building for the past three days.
Three reliable sources confirmed that fifteen ambulances queued up at the emergency department today.
All 24-hour emergency department services in the Mid West were previously reconfigured into UHL and the hospital has sought an additional 96 bed unit to try to help it cope with patient numbers, despite more than 100 additional beds coming on stream at the hospital last year.
Most of the additional bed capacity in 2021 had been set aide for Covid-19 patients.
One source said ambulance crews were “marooned” in the hospital today, as there was not enough trolleys in the hospital to hand over their patients to hospital staff.
“The trolley situation is fairly desperate and the waiting area is like Beirut,” the source added.
Independent Limerick TD Richard O’Donoghue, who was a patient at UHL last week and witnessed for himself the “chaotic scenes of patient overcrowding”, called for 24-hour emergency departments to be reopened and staffed in Ennis and Nenagh to alleviate pressure on UHL.
Last month the INMO called on the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to investigate overcrowding at UHL.
On January 25, the union said it recorded 97 patients without a bed at the hospital “the highest number recorded in any Irish hospital since the union began compiling trolley figures”.
