HIQA report lays bare failure at UHL
HIQA report lays bare failure at UHL - The Labour Party
Labour’s Conor Sheehan TD for Limerick has today responded to the stark HIQA report on University Hospital Limerick (UHL), which has told the Minister for Health she must either expand the existing hospital, provide a new support hospital, or build a completely new hospital for the Mid-West to address chronic overcrowding. HIQA has warned that overcrowding continues to pose an ongoing risk to patient safety and has called for urgent action.
Deputy Sheehan said:
“The HIQA report is a damning indictment of this Government’s continued failure to deal with the crisis at University Hospital Limerick. HIQA is crystal clear: the Minister for Health must now choose between three options – expanding capacity at UHL, extending the hospital campus to include a second site, or building a new Model 3 hospital in the region. For too long, warnings have been ignored, and it is patients and frontline staff who are paying the price.
“HIQA’s analysis leaves no room for complacency. In the short term, we need urgent progress on option A and option B. That means expanding bed capacity on the Dooradoyle site and creating a second campus nearby under shared governance and resourcing. These measures would provide immediate relief to the intolerable pressure in our emergency department and across the hospital system in Limerick.
“However, HIQA has also pointed to the long-term requirement for option C – the development of a new Model 3 hospital in the Mid-West, providing a second emergency department for the region. This is essential if we are to create a sustainable, safe, and modern healthcare service for the people of Limerick and the wider Mid-West. It is deeply worrying that it has taken a regulator’s intervention to make the Government face up to the reality of what patients and staff have been shouting about for years.
“Every person in Ireland has the right to safe and timely healthcare. Yet the reality at UHL is chronic overcrowding, repeated trolley crises, and an emergency department that simply cannot cope. The strain on patients, families, and healthcare workers is intolerable, and it is getting worse, not better. This report is a wake-up call that cannot be shelved or spun away. The Minister for Health must act now.”