A flying squad of health troubleshooters is to be sent in to sort out an overcrowded hospital as the bed shortage hit crisis levels.
The team of experts is part of an emergency plan by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to help University Hospital Limerick, which saw 111 patients languishing on trolleys yesterday.
Mr Donnelly said he was “very concerned” about patient care at UHL as figures by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) showed that in the past week alone, at least 649 patients were cramped together on trolleys on corridors along the hospital’s Emergency Department and wards.
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In reality the figures are much higher as trolley statistics are not reported during weekends, the busiest period for many hospitals.
A member of staff who did not want to be identified said: “It’s chaotic, the worst I’ve ever seen it in here, and that is saying something, because I thought I had previously witnessed it at its worst.
“There is just no joined up thinking, no communication, no plan, not enough beds, you name it, it’s just terrible in here.”
A record 126 patients languished on trolleys on corridors at UHL last Thursday, April 21.
Mr Donnelly said he was “very concerned, as is the HSE, about the length of time patients are having to wait”. He said he had directed HSE chief executive Paul Reid to implement “a plan to look at Emergency Departments right around the country, hospital by hospital, and see what more is needed”.
He added: “A lot of work is going on, but I do believe there are areas where we can do more: For example, having emergency medicine consultants on site more at the weekends, later into the evenings where necessary; access over the weekends to diagnostics; making sure we are fully utilising the level 2 and level 3 hospitals that can take patents out (of model 4 hospitals), that we are fully utilising the minor injury units.
“I’ve been in touch with the management in University Hospital Limerick about all of this and I spoke with the HSE yesterday and I’ve asked them to provide an expert team to the hospital managers. There is a lot of work already going on in the hospital and they are in the middle of a piece of work themselves, looking at their patient pathways, but it is very important to me that the management and the clinicians at University Hospital Limerick get all of the support that they possibly need, so I have asked Paul Reid (HSE chief executive) to make sure that a specialist team can go in to make sure that the local teams have everything that they need.”
In response, a UHL staff member said: “That’s all been done before, we’ve had these investigations time and time again. The Minister is calling for access to diagnostics at weekends, that just tells you where Ireland’s health service is in the 21st century, despite everything that we know and have complained about for decades, not months, decades.”
Welcoming the plan, Limerick Fianna Fail TD Niall Collins said: “The Health Minister’s decision to order this review is necessary and merited. The number of patients on trolleys has continued to rise and is a cause of huge concern to the public. People regularly tell me of their fear of attending UHL due to the delays at the emergency department.”
Limerick Sinn Fein TD, Maurice Quinlivan, said the situation at UHL as “outrageous” and that “it is high time for a HIQA investigation to be carried out into overcrowding”.
Previously, operating 24-hour Accident and Emergency Departments in Clare and Tipperary were streamlined to Limerick, and despite a government investment in a new state of the art ED at UHL in 2017, patient overcrowding at UHL has worsened.
When asked for comment, a UHL spokesman replied: “UL Hospitals Group apologises to all patients who are currently facing lengthy waits for a bed at University Hospital Limerick. This is not the care we wish to provide for our patients and we would like to assure patients and their loved ones that management and staff are making every effort to minimise wait times for admitted patients.”
He said the hospital was “under severe pressure” as a result of record levels of attendances and that “the numbers waiting for a bed remain far too high, resulting in poor patient experiences”.
He urged anyone that is not in need of emergency care to avoid the Limerick ED, as emergency patients were being prioritised, and to seek out alternative care options including “family GPs, injury units, and pharmacies”.
The hospital is reviewing elective activity on a “daily basis” and it has “in recent days raised our level of escalation to include reductions in scheduled care”, he said.
“We need to balance emergency presentations with the needs of these time-critical elective patients and the current challenge at UHL only underlines the importance of providing an elective only hospital in the Midwest.”
There were 47 Covid positive patents being treated at UHL, the highest figure nationally.
“We acknowledge the tremendous work being done by all of our staff at UL Hospitals Group to meet current service demands and to keep patients safe,” said the spokesman.
Over 100 new beds were opened at UHL last year however most were utilised as a Covid-19 ward.
The hospital is awaiting the construction of a proposed additional 98-bed unit on its grounds.
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