60 BEDS are lying idle since May at an intermediate care facility located 1.8km from the consistently overcrowded University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
Built at a cost between €18m to €20m, Raheen Lodge is the first intermediate care facility in Limerick and is operated by Bartra Healthcare who have similar facilities serving Beaumont and Clondalkin hospitals.
Management of the facility have described it as “a ready-made solution” to the overcrowding crisis which consistently engulfs UHL. Already this year, UHL has recorded 2,370 more patient attendances compared to 2025.
Raheen Lodge has a total capacity for 80 beds but currently is treating eighteen long-term patients. It has in the region of 50 staff but has a “ramp-up” plan if demand increases. Patients that would be accepted must be over eighteen and be medically stable that require ongoing treatment and therapy.
Chief Executive of Bartra Healthcare, Angela Ring outlined that Raheen Lodge differs from a nursing home in that “we have doctors on site 24/7, a nursing home can have a GP visiting twice a week”. Staff include occupational therapists and physiotherapists along with nurses and doctors while therapy assistants work on weekends. It has its own ambulance transport which means existing ambulance resources in the Mid-West are not drained.
A new Mid-West Hospital Capacity Tracker prepared by Bartra Healthcare has revealed that an average of 38 acute beds are occupied at UHL by patients medically approved for care elsewhere. “Delayed transfers of care is the new term for bed blockers, there are 8,000 people in the Mid-West waiting for day procedures but there are patients occupying beds at UHL that don’t need to be there. Surge capacity is in use when the emergency department is very busy, Dublin has the release valve of intermediate facilities, the Mid-West doesn’t have this facility of a release valve, Angela stated.
Built within eighteen months, Angela said the location was chosen specifically to alleviate the burden on UHL by offering step-down and intermediate care. “We purposely chose this location, we look at the hotspots around the country, the Dublin model works really well, this site was sold with planning permission for 80 beds. The ageing population in the Mid-West is huge”.
Bartra Healthcare operate intermediate care centres in Dublin, Beaumont Lodge and Clondalkin Lodge. Beaumont has 221 beds and an average occupancy of 91 percent in 2026, Clondalkin has thirty beds and an average occupancy of 93 percent this year while Raheen Lodge has eighty beds and an average occupancy of zero.
According to Ms Ring, the average length of stay for a patient in Beaumont Lodge is twenty to twenty one days. “Consultants go around in the morning, they assess the patients suitability, we can’t take them if they are too unwell, it is same day assessment and admission, that helps the flow, takes from the ward to the units so surgeries are not rescheduled, it has knock-on impact and that’s why Beaumont and Connolly not in the headlines. The cost of a bed is a fraction for that of a bed in an acute hospital”. For patients over the age of sixty, “the older you are and the longer you are in hospital the more that your mortality increases is frightening,” she said.
Insisting that she and Bartra Healthcare have “a very good relationship” with the HSE, Angela admitted that the absence of a contract between both parties is leading to the beds lying idle. She recalled that a tender was advertised on April 1st for intermediate care but was removed the next day and a revised version appeared for short-stay therapeutic beds in a nursing home.
With the absence of a contract, Angela was unable to detail the cost per bed for a patient in Raheen Lodge but said such detail for their Dublin facilities was “commercially sensitive”. Their business relies on securing tenders and admitted she has “no insight” as to why the initial tender was taken down and confirmed it was not an April Fools Day joke. Transitioning Raheen Lodge into a nursing home is not an option, she confirmed.
Ms Ring calculated that it could take two to four weeks once a contract is signed to have Raheen Lodge operating at full capacity.
Having a “ready-made solution” not be utilised has left Angela “very frustrated”. She said, “As a nurse myself, I’ve empty beds that can make a difference, it is really hard. I know this model works, we get people home to their own bed”. She continued, “Bartra has never been in this situation” and said, “it is unprecedented that sixty beds are lying idle 1.8km from UHL”.
As the wait to secures a contract continues, Bartra are losing staff in the Mid-West, she confirmed. Between twenty to thirty staff are on standby should activity ramp up.
A spokesperson for Bartra Healthcare confirmed that the Oireachtas members in the Mid-West region are aware of their difficulties with Raheen Lodge.
