*Cllr Ian Lynch (IND).
A CLARE councillor has urged his colleagues to send a strong message to the Government by going Independent in the fight to get a new hospital built in the county.
In order to force the Government to sit up and take notice to requests to build a new hospital in Co Clare, elected members need to form a united front with Cllr Ian Lynch (IND) suggesting party allegiance be ditched.
Speaking at the October meeting of the County Council, he commented, “If the Council really wants to send a statement that all 28 of us are on the same page, maybe we all need to be Independent and send a very strong message to the parties”.
Lynch alongside Cllr Tommy Guilfoyle (SF), Cllr James Ryan (SF), Cllr Michael Begley (IND) and Cllr Dinny Gould (IND) tabled a motion calling on the Government “to commit without delay to the planning, funding, and construction of a new Model 3 or 4 hospital in Ennis. This investment is essential to secure equitable, safe, and timely healthcare access for the people of Clare and the wider Mid-West region”.
HIQA’s report on emergency care in the Mid-West was labelled by Cllr Lynch as “one of the most disappointing I’ve across, it gives the Government plenty of doors to go out and it is wishy washy”. The Kilrush native stated, “China could build a hospital in COVID in 48 hours, they are using the Children’s Hospital to say it cannot go ahead, it is only an excuse, we don’t need to spend thousands on consultants”.
People of Clare have been “repeatedly sidelined” when it comes to healthcare, Cllr Guilfoyle stated. “We demand a model four hospital for Ennis. In 2009 the worst decision was made to downgrade our hospital, we were promised a cat in the hat with reconfiguration and a better model forward”. University Hospital Limerick (UHL) “is dangerously over-crowded and over-staffed,” he said. “We all know people have suffered the loss of family members because of the broken system in UHL, this is about priorities, values and justice”. Option C of the HIQA report to build a new model hospital must be followed through on, he insisted, “The HIQA report gives us the blueprint and the mandate, we want political courage”.
“We waited a very long time for the HIQA report, one wonder how it took so long to come up with basic ideas when the dog on the street knows we need a model three hospital in Ennis,” commented Cllr Ryan. The danger and risk of ninety minute journeys from parts of North Clare to UHL were flagged by Cllr Ryan. “There is a massive need for proper real investment in the health service, particularly in Clare,” he said.
To say there is a risk to patient safety at UHL is “an understatement,” Cllr Begley maintained. “I had occasion to be in the emergency department for five days on the trot two weeks ago, to say it is unsafe is an understatement, the embarrassment to patients filling the corridors, literally to get through corridors you have to turn sideways, the situation is appalling. I don’t know the short-term solutions but the quicker the long-term solution comes on the table the better, the onus is on our Oireachtas members to get serious action taken. The urgency attached to a model three or four hospital based in Co Clare cannot be over-emphasised, work needs to start immediately,” he added.
For the past two decades, the people of Clare have been crying out for a new hospital in Ennis, Cllr Gould noted. UHL as a centre of excellence has not worked out, he stressed. He said his own mother in law aged ninety four was left on a trolley earlier in October. “With the population of Ennis growing, we need it there more than anywhere. To go from my house to UHL is 90 minutes, how long would it take in Loop Head it would be two hours, you can’t survive a heart attack”.
Cllr Gabriel Keating (FG) informed the meeting he has contacted the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG) alerting her to the fact that a seventy eight year old neighbour of his spent fifty minutes trying to find a parking space in UHL. “She did the same test a year ago in Ennis, asked how it was not done in Ennis, the reply was the same facilities in Ennis but we had no personnel to use it”.
