MANAGEMENT at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) has been called upon to abide by public statements and cancel all non-urgent elective care and prioritise the clinical needs of patients in the hospital’s emergency department.
The call came from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) after 94 patients were left without a bed in the hospital yesterday (Monday).
INMO Assistant Director of Industrial Relations Mary Fogarty said that despite public assurances from management at the hospital that “all but most urgent elective surgery” would be curtailed in Ireland’s most-overcrowded hospital, most elective care continued at the hospital on Monday and Tuesday.
“It is clear that University Hospital Limerick cannot cope with providing emergency and elective care at the same time. Hospital management must abide by their public statements and actually curtail non-urgent elective care immediately,” Ms Fogarty added.
“INMO members are reporting serious delays in triage and assessment of patients by doctors in the emergency department. Further delays on top of the high number of patients without a bed is compromising care and outcomes for patients.
“At a time when everyone else in the country is winding down, it is only getting worse for INMO members and other healthcare workers in UHL. Management must take the extraordinary steps they have publicly promised,” Ms Fogarty declared.
