*Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly. Photograph: Brian Arthur.
GOVERNMENT and management at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) do not stand over continued overcrowding at the region’s main hospital, the Minister for Health has said.
HIQA’s latest report at UHL which followed an unannounced two day risk-based inspection completed in February noted that eight out of eleven national standards assessed were either compliant or substantially compliant with more private and dignified patient care available outside the ED.
Nurse staffing levels in the emergency department, an enhancement in the number of consultants in emergency medicine and the manner in which work is organised in the ED were among the improvements observed.
Consistently, the emergency department remains an issue in the Hospital, with 72 patients on trolleys and chairs on the day of the inspection. This level of overcrowding continued to impact on the privacy and dignity of patients despite the best efforts of staff.
When questioned by The Clare Echo on how he as Minister for Health can continue to stand over persisting overcrowding and lack of patient dignity, Stephen Donnelly (FF) responded, “There’s no standing over the situation at the emergency department at University Hospital Limerick, I don’t stand over it and nobody in Government stands over it, no one in the hospital stands over it, it is not a level of care that any health professional believes is appropriate and so the HIQA report has found again that they are non-compliant with specific reference to privacy and dignity, we are taking that very seriously.
“The solution to this is two things, we are investing in the hospital and community health care in the region at a level that has never been seen before whilst at the same time insisting there is fundamental reform in how patients are treated, in terms of that reform we must see the hospital running seven days a week, we cannot have a situation where people are admitted on a trolley on Friday night and have to wait until on a Monday or Tuesday, we have to see people being discharged through the weekend”.
A cohesive approach is needed within the health service, Minister Donnelly stated. “I’ve been having some very constructive conversations here in Clare in terms of the hospital group and community group working together and facilities like here today are part of the answer, Ennis Hospital is part of the answer so patients can be discharged out. We have added over 100 beds in the lifetime of this Government into University Hospital Limerick, we’ve added over 730 additional staff, I have personally turned the sod on another 96 bed block and sanctioned the enabling works for another 96 bed block, this Government will be responsible for delivering or getting going more than 300 hospital beds just for UHL as well a huge increase in staff as well as just as importantly a big investment in community care because we are moving from a health care system which has traditionally relied on hospitals doing all the heavy lifting to one that says the hospitals need to do the bit that only they can do, everything else needs to happen in the community, in Ennis Hospital, in the primary care centre, with community based teams and in people’s homes, that is the journey we’re on and ultimately that is what will solve the issue in the emergency department at UHL”.
Minister Donnelly pointed to improvements compared with the present time and 2019 when asked what consequences would be issued to management of UHL for a continued failure to comply with HIQA guidelines. “The main consequences I’m concerned with are for patients and our healthcare workers who are working in that environment, I took a look last night at the performance in the ED for the first six months of this year versus the first six months of 2019 because the comparison during COVID is a difficult one to make, the situation right now is not remotely acceptable but it is twenty percent less bad than it was in 2019, they’ve improved by about twenty percent in terms of the time patients are waiting and the numbers on trolleys that are counted at 8am every morning, there is a long way to go but it is encouraging to see huge investment together with some of the reforms which are clearly happening in the hospital, we’re beginning to see reductions versus 2019, we’re doing that in spite of a nearly 10 percent increase in the number of people walking through the door.
“I’ve been in the hospital several times and on unannounced visits to the ED, when I met with the hospital staff and management they said to me clearly and correctly was that there hasn’t been enough investment in this hospital, that they needed more beds, doctors, nurses, health and social care professionals, access to diagnostics and community care, they asked the Government to step up and the Government has stepped up. I’m saying the hospital also has to step up, as I believe they are beginning to do, for example running the services seven days a week rather than five”.
A timeline for ‘stepping up’ has not been issued by the Minister to UL Hospitals Group, he confirmed to The Clare Echo. “Well it’s happening, it is a process, we will have an urgent health care plan which I’ll be bringing to Government quite shortly, it is another step and I’ll be bringing a three year plan which will be another step again, it is a process in terms of adding the facility and hiring more staff in, building up the community services, integrating between community and hospital care”.
