Minister Carroll MacNeill is pictured here with John Moran, Mayor of Limerick, and Bernard Gloster CEO HSE. Photograph: Don Moloney
MINISTER FOR Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG) has agreed to meet a Clare-based health campaign group following the decision not to build a new hospital in the county.
Friends of Ennis Hospital have confirmed to The Clare Echo that the Minister for Health has accepted their invitation to visit the county and meet directly with the group.
Confirmation of the Health Minister’s visit comes just over a week after she announced a new €14m hospital would be built on a 43.8 acre site in Raheen, two kilometres from University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
A severe deficit in acute capacity continues within the Mid-West. Estimates from Friends of Ennis Hospital (FEH) detail that the region is short at least 600 beds.
Labelling the proposed hospital campus in Raheen as a necessary step to address capacity shortfall, Chairperson of FEH, Angela Coll said the broader plan raises serious concerns, particularly for the people of Clare. She warned that the potential of centralising services in Raheen to downgrade UHL would leave Clare patients facing long and potentially dangerous journeys for urgent care while also resulting in the entire region serving a population of over 500,000, relying on a single Emergency Department.
Angela outlined, “That is the reality we will be putting directly to the Minister when she visits Clare. This is not a theoretical debate anymore. The Minister will hear firsthand how these decisions impact patients who are already travelling excessive distances for care. In every other region, there are multiple acute hospitals. The minimum is three, and most regions have five. Yet here in the Mid-West, the direction of travel is towards a single point of access. That is neither safe nor sustainable”.
She added, “We welcome the Minister’s decision to come to Clare and engage with us. It is vital that she sees the reality on the ground and understands that equity in healthcare must extend beyond major urban centres. No one is asking for an emergency department every ten minutes. But no health system should accept a situation where people are expected to travel over an hour in an emergency. That is not access, it is exclusion. The people of Clare deserve a health service that works for them. This meeting with the Minister is an opportunity to reset that conversation and we intend to make that case clearly and forcefully”.
