University Hospital Limerick trolley numbers demand a crisis response

Labour TD for Limerick City, Jan O’Sullivan says the trolley numbers at UHL requires a crisis response after 81 people, were waiting on trolleys at the hospital today.

Deputy O’Sullivan said:

“I am calling on Minister Harris to intervene directly to get management to re-open the 17 bed ward 1a that was closed last week.

“ The Minister also needs to deal with the staffing inequalities at UHL as the Mid-West region has less frontline staff per head of population than any other region.

“I cautiously welcome the fact that groundwork has begun on the 60 bed modular unit but the simple fact is that €2 million is a drop in the ocean compared to the total cost of delivering the unit.

“The Minister needs to allocate more money to allow offsite construction of the actual unit to commence.”

“I am blue in the face from raising this with the Minister. Instead of uttering meaningless platitudes, he needs to take action by re-opening the 17 closed beds and immediately committing to fully funding the modular unit.”