THE UL Hospitals Group (ULHG), which manages the most overcrowded hospital in the country, has asked that “less acutely unwell” patients avoid the emergency department (ED) at University Hospital Limerick over the Easter weekend.
ULHG today (Thursday) said that it has “requested that consultants and senior clinical decision makers are available over the weekend in order to support discharge and movement of patients”.
There were 111 patients this morning on trolleys waiting for beds at University Hospital Limerick (UHL), the highest number nationally. This marks the 47th consecutive weekday the Limerick hospital ranked as the most overcrowded nationally, according to figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Union.
Since 2009, UHL has struggled to provide the only 24-hour emergency department service for 400,000 people across the Mid West, when A&E services in Clare and north Tipperary were reconfigured to Limerick.
In a statement issued today, ULHG said it was “managing high demand for emergency and inpatient care” and it expected a surge of attendances over the Easter weekend.
The ED at UHL was opened in 2017 to cater for up to 190 patients in a 24-hour period, however, throughout March, a daily average of 226 patients attended the ED, exceeding by 16 per cent the average 195 daily attendances recorded in 2019, the last full year prior to the pandemic.
“The general rise in demand for emergency care persists into this month. On Monday, some 234 people attended, followed by 256 on Tuesday, and 239 in the 24 hour period to 8am this morning (Thursday),” the Group said.
All of its six sites in the region including UHL, Nenagh Hospital, St John’s Hospital, University Hospital Maternity Hospital Limerick, Croom Orthopeadic Hospital, and St John’s Hospital, “remain very busy, with continued high emergency department attendances and inpatient admissions at University Hospital Limerick”.
“As we continue to balance demand for emergency healthcare with the needs of inpatients while safely maintaining time-critical and other elective activity, we’re asking people with less than urgent healthcare needs to consider our injury units and all other healthcare options to help avoid inevitably long waits at the ED,” it said.
“Given this ongoing level of demand, and the high level of activity during the last bank holiday weekend in mid-March, we have continued working to our escalation framework this week to create surge capacity and maximise numbers of inpatient beds available across all our sites.”
As part of an escalation plan, the ULHG was continuing “additional ward rounding, so that appropriate patients can be discharged or transferred” from UHL to Ennis, Nenagh, and St John’s Hospital.
The Group said was also looking to “expedite suitable discharges home or to community care beds”.
It is advised by ULHG that “anyone with a serious injury or unexpected illness should come to ED or call 999/112, but with all sites in a state of escalation, it’s is likely that anyone presenting to ED with less than urgent healthcare needs will face a lengthy wait”.
Opening hours for Ennis and Nenagh Injury Units are 8am-8pm. St John’s Injury Unit opens from 8am-7pm. Full contacts for the units and details of their services are available on the HSE website.
