ANOTHER 84 beds are in the pipeline for University Hospital Limerick (UHL), along with funds for staffing all beds currently in the pipeline, Health Minster Stephen Donnelly confirmed on a visit to Limerick this week.
The Minister was on Shannonside officially open a new €31million 50-bed unit at St Camillus Nursing Home.
Speaking at the launch, the Minister said that “Limerick had not had the level of investment it needed in 15 years. We have added 118 beds to UHL and about another 200 under construction. We will have almost doubled the number of beds in UHL”.
Giving a timeline for the new beds, Minister Donnelly said that UHL has gone from 400 beds to 800 beds, with 118 already in, another 32 being built in modular design which will be open in the net few weeks, a new 96-bed block due by June. and a second 96-bed block due to be delivered at the end of 2026.
“But we’re not stopping there – our bed plan has another 84 beds after that, and we’re staffing all of that up,” he told reporters at the launch.
“When all of that is delivered, the Mid West will have the second highest level of beds of any region.
“Together with the hiring and reforms that are being pushed by the new management team, I believe in 2025 we are going to see the kind of changes that the Mid West has been owed for a long time.”
Asked about the uptake by consultants on the new public-only contracts, HSE CEO Bernard Gloster, who was also at the St Camillus launch, said that out of 240 consultants at UHL, 102 have signed the public-only contract.
Mr Gloster said the HSE is making contracts sufficiently attractive and competitive to drawing medical staff here.
“When they (consultants) have fulfilled their public commitment in UHL, they will be free to work in a private hospital due to open in Limerick in June,” he said.
Mr Gloster said that “the configuration of acute health care in the Mid West will change dramatically from next summer”.
When asked by the Limerick Post, Mr Gloster said that he could not comment on ongoing disciplinary investigations against members of UHL staff following the death of Shannon teenager Aoife Johnston.
“I can say little about that. There are processes ongoing, they involve a number of individuals. It is important to say there is no finding against anyone at this time, but there are significant investigations going on under the HSE disciplinary procedures.”
