MORE than 6,000 people left the emergency department (ED) in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) without having been treated in 2024.
That’s according to official figures revealed under parliamentary question, which also showed that the Full Capacity Protocol at UHL has been activated everyday bar one during the years 2023 and 2024.
The figures were revealed in response to questions submitted by the Limerick TD Maurice Quinlivan.
Deputy Quinlivan said that the protocol “was designed as a measure of last resort, to deal with major incidents, not just for a hospital to control an unexpected spike in presentation. Its daily use demonstrates just how overcrowded and unsafe the hospital is.”
Condemning the number of people who left without being treated, he said: “87,366 people presented to the emergency department at UHL in 2024. Of those presenting, 6,062 left the hospital without completing their treatment. These are people who were referred by their GP, arrived by ambulance, or who deemed themselves in need of hospital treatment but opted to leave the emergency department before being seen.”
“In 2023 we had over 23,000 patients treated on trolleys at University Hospital Limerick, and already this year there have been a further 5,209 treated in these conditions. These are not just statistics, these are people deemed in need of a hospital bed and yet no bed was available to them.”
The Deputy called for “decisive, creative, and new steps to be taken by the government to radically speed up the construction of new bed units and address the staffing issues at the hospital”.
In a response at this week’s Regional Health Forum meeting to numbers leaving without treatment, hospital CEO Ian Carter said: “A record 87,366 patients attended the ED in 2024, an increase of more than 10 per cent on the year before,” with a further increase of four pre cent so far this year.
“To ensure this process is clinically safe for patients, Irish hospitals use the internationally tested Manchester Triage Tool which prioritises patients into a number of categories based on their clinical needs. Where a patient is seriously ill or injured, their needs will be prioritised above those with less serious conditions … In this regard, some patients with less serious needs may choose to avail of alternative options”.
Addressing the capacity protocol, a spokesperson for the hospital said that “in 2025 to date, average daily ED attendance has been 248-249. On four days, presentations were greater than 300, including January 28, when 334 patients attended, the highest ever at UHL for a single day”.
“Measures taken under our escalation plan include opening surge capacity; transferring patients on trolleys to inpatient wards; additional ward rounds by medical teams to expedite discharges or identify patients suitable for transfer to Ennis, Nenagh, and St John’s Hospitals; working closely with our colleagues in the community in order to expedite discharges and regular review of scheduled care.”
The spokesman said the hospital have also “enhanced and expanded access to urgent care facilities as alternate pathways to ED. Injury units and GP-referral medical assessment units in Ennis, Nenagh, and St John’s Hospitals are managing an average of approximately 1,200 patients per week”.
“Additional consultants are on duty at weekends and bank holidays and the hospital has limited surgical treatments to urgent cases only.”
