GETTING accountability off the Government “for the healthcare crisis in the Mid-West is like playing handball against a haystack,” a Clare TD has claimed while it has been confirmed that the Taoiseach is to visit University Hospital Limerick (UHL) this Friday.
Acknowledgements from the Taoiseach, Tanáiste, Minister for Health and HSE management that the model two hospitals in the Mid-West, Ennis and Nenagh, have been made but no clear plan has been outlined to change the current situation.
At the beginning of February, The Clare Echo reported how staff at Ennis Hospital were growing increasingly worried that its two fully equipped theatres remained empty and closed since Christmas with some warning that five successive weeks of elective day case procedure cancellations would result in delayed cancer diagnoses.
Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar (FG) is to visit UHL this Friday, the former Minister for Health had attended an online meeting with Oireachtas representatives from the region, HSE and hospital management after an internal incident was declared at UHL last month.
Speaking to The Clare Echo on Wednesday, Clare TD, Michael McNamara (IND) said he has requested the Taoiseach to also visit Ennis Hospital so that “he can get a better understanding of the underutilisation of Model 2 Hospitals, such as Ennis, Nenagh and St. Johns, and their capacity to contribute to reducing overcrowding at UHL”.
On Tuesday, McNamara highlighted this during Leader’s Questions in the Dáil. He recalled how HSE management acknowledged at a meeting on January 17th that “UHL’s model 2 hospitals such as Ennis, Nenagh and St. John’s Hospital were underutilised”.
At that particular meeting, Deputy McNamara asked what additional resources would be provided to Ennis following the new arrangement whereby a limited number of patients were brought to Ennis Hospital by ambulance to ease the pressure on UHL. “It was implicit in the reply that those resources would be provided. Instead, all surgery stopped in Ennis for the month of January. Two newly equipped theatres lay idle and specialist staff were redeployed across the hospital,” he commented.
McNamara asked the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar (FG) if he was happy that the Mid-West and UL Hospitals Group was adequately resourced compared to other parts of the State and if he was content that the resources were adequately managed.
Varadkar admitted, “I am not satisfied with where we are with that as a country and I acknowledge that we have a lot more work to do and not just in the Mid-West region but across the country as well. People will bandy about a lot of different figures as to which region has the most beds, the least beds or which budget and I am not sure we always compare like with like when we do that”.
UHL’s workforce has grown “by more than 1,000 full-time staff since then, just two and a half years, and its budget has increased by 20%,” the Taoiseach claimed. He acknowledged the shift in ambulance policy will see the likes of Ennis Hospital require additional resources.
Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly (FF) is to assess why surgeries have been cancelled in Ennis, the Taoiseach confirmed. “It could be that the hospital was simply full of medical patients. That happens, particularly during winter when the surgical wards have to be given over to medical patients because so many people come in with pneumonia, respiratory infections and other things. That is why surgery is sometimes cancelled and it is one of the reasons we want to develop surgical hubs and elective hospitals”.
