*Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG) flanked by Clare TDs, Timmy Dooley (FF) and Joe Cooney (FG) outside Ennis Hospital. Photograph: Páraic McMahon.
A DECISION to decide on and announce the location of a new hospital for the Mid-West region before visiting County Clare to discover the needs and challenges faced by those attempting to access emergency care was defended by the Minister for Health.
Sixteen months on from her appointment as Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG) visited County Clare for the first time in an official capacity this week. She visited Ennis Hospital, Ennistymon Community Hospital and also travelled to Kilkee.
She explained the purpose of the visit was “to see directly for myself some of the health care facilities that are there, some of the challenges in terms of emergency access”.
On March 10th, the HSE announced they were acquiring 44 acre site in Raheen to allow for the construction of a new hospital campus which would be one of the largest in the country and would relieve pressure on University Hospital Limerick, two kilometres away in Dooradoyle. This followed HIQA’s review into emergency healthcare in the Mid-West region.
When asked by The Clare Echo why this announcement was made before the Minister visited Co Clare to better understand the difficulties in accessing emergency care, Carroll MacNeill stated, “I announced the purchase of the site which is a very strategic site in an IDA park right in the centre of the town near a model four hospital. Option A from HIQA was developing significant additional capacity, the Dooradoyle site is already constrained and there is only so much more we can do there. We awarded the construction contract for the second ninety six bed block which is great to see that progressing but that site was always not enough for Limerick and the development of acute specialist resources in Limerick, we can do both, it is not an either or situation”.
“We would always have needed that site, an opportunity came to buy the site and I think it was the right opportunity to purchase that site, it is a really strategic site and is adjacent to a medical school, near significant pharmaceutical and medical-technical companies where we can do more on innovation and research, it is the right site for so many different reasons but that doesn’t make it an alternative to service improvement in Clare in any sense,” she added.
Clare remains the only county in Munster without an emergency department. There are no signs of this changing and instead more outpatient services will be redirected to Ennis Hospital and primary care centres across the county. “What I want to see here (Ennis Hospital) is an expanded medical assessment unit that is doing more for people here in the moment, I’d like to see more surgical options here, they are already doing fantastic in-patient cases on gynaecology but there is an awful lot more than can be done with enhanced theatre capacity, there is more laparoscopy that can be done here, different types of surgeries that can and should happen here, I want outpatient services delivered not just on this campus but across primary care centres so people are not travelling to Limerick for a patient neurology appointment, I want to decant as much as possible both from how we get to people in an emergency and the nature of that as well as delivering more services in Ennis”.
Ennis will soon have a dialysis unit, she added. “These are exactly the types of things I am talking about, dialysis is another one, the acute hospital care in Limerick needs to be exactly that, it is for an emergency cardiology situation, an emergency stroke, a car accident, the severe diagnostic but that follow up care needs to be delivered locally, we do not want sick people travelling long distances when routine health care can be delivered more locally and that is why I’m here to see what is possible in Ennis”.
At present, the CT scanner at the Ennis MAU only operates in the morning time but this needs to be extended to afternoons and evenings, the Minister stated.
She continued, “The reason I’m here is because we’ve had the HIQA report looking at emergency care in the Mid-West and what needs to be here over time, we have purchased a site in Raheen in Limerick as part of the development of the Mid-West care but my priority first and foremost has been what are we doing more for Ennis and Nenagh, I will not countenance an approach or a politics that elevates Limerick above the region, that is why I’m here first. In December and again in April I’ve been asking the HSE more and more about what more Ennis and Nenagh can do for the people and its community which prevents them travelling to Limerick and what services can be delivered more locally in 2026 and thereafter. It is not just about beds, although we do have a plan for additional beds here and reconfiguring the theatres which are doing excellent work and need redevelopment, what more can be done to improve services and already I can see in the last two weeks that blood tests before people get their cancer infusions are now being done here, that wasn’t happening before, this is a first step to having a full and more complete delivery of oncology services delivered here in Ennis. I don’t want people from Clare to have to travel to Limerick to get a blood test before their cancer infusion and I ultimately don’t want them to have to go to Limerick for their infusion, I do want them to go to Limerick for expert surgical care, expert diagnosis and a plan of care, I want them to be able to get those services more locally in Clare.
Two months on from the Raheen announcement, no hospital development board has been appointed. The Minister said it would have been “an insult” to the people of Clare if she appointed personnel to the board without visiting the county. “Having been in Clare, having met and listened to people here, I am now in a position to be able to take that forward. I’ve received suggestions from Limerick but I felt it would have been a real insult to the people of Clare to do it the other way around and I would not have been well enough informed, I am here exactly two months to the day on from purchasing the site in Raheen, in that time I’ve received detailed consideration from the HSE on how to develop hospital services, I’ve asked them to go back and develop an equivocal position on community services, emergency department in the home and services working elsewhere, virtual care and more that needs to be added to that. In the last few months you have seen more of a focus on this region than there has ever been before”.
Minister Carroll MacNeill said a regional focus “has been absent” from her predecessors. She was then questioned by The Clare Echo if she was suggesting previous Fine Gael Health Ministers like Dr James Reilly (FG) had failed the region. “That was such a different period because we were trenching services because we had no money in the country, we’re at a really important moment now where we have more money in healthcare than we’ve had before nationally and regionally, we’ve more consultants in the region than we’ve had before, we have a public consultant contract which means we can schedule and roster people differently. This was talked about before for consultants to do more in Ennis but it wasn’t part of their contract, now every new consultant that comes into the Mid-West is coming on a public-only consultant contract and will have an agreed work plan which will ensure proper time in Ennis and servicing the people of Clare and Nenagh, it already happens with so many different consultants at the moment”.
