WHILE surgeries and outpatients appointments are still massively curtailed at University Hospital Limerick, the hospital management has announced that some outpatient procedures and appointments will be restored on a trial basis from this week.
On foot of queries from the Limerick Post a hospital spokesman said today (Thursday) that “elective and day surgery and outpatient activity remains significantly curtailed across UL Hospitals Group this week. However, management and healthcare teams have agreed a limited increase in the number of exemptions from the deferrals, in order to manage more cases of high clinical priority.
All non-essential surgery and many appointments were put on hold at hospitals in the group more than a week ago as part of a “re-set” by hospital management to cope with high patient demand.
“These adjustments include some outpatient activity, endoscopies and day cases. The impact of this careful recalibration is being closely monitored, and its impact on management of patient flow in UHL and across our sites continually assessed”.
The spokesman said that anyone impacted by deferrals “is being contacted directly by our staff. We regret the impact of the decision to suspend appointments and we will work to reschedule these as soon as possible.
“Emergency and trauma surgery is continuing, and the Emergency Department (ED), which is open 24/7 for emergency cases, remains busy with high numbers of attendances”.
“We urge people to continue attending ED for the most serious illnesses and injuries, such as suspected heart attacks and strokes. However, at this time of high demand for emergency care, anyone with less serious injuries will experience delays, and we ask them to consider all healthcare alternatives to ED where appropriate, including family doctors, out of hours GP services, and local pharmacies.
Injury Units and Medical Assessment Units at Ennis, Nenagh, and St John’s hospitals are all operating as normal, and are an excellent care pathway for a range of minor injuries, which are outlined on the HSE website at: https://www2.hse.ie/services/injury-units/.
