Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, pictured with the Mayor of Limerick John Moran and (right) Patrick O’Donovan, Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport. Picture: Don Moloney
AN INVITATION has been issued to the Health Minister to visit West Clare to gain a better understanding on the need to build a new hospital in Co Clare not Limerick.
Minister of Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG) was in Co Clare on Saturday as she attended the funeral of former Clare TD and ex Junior Minister, Donal Carey (FG) in Clarecastle.
On her way back to Dublin, the Minister visited University Hospital Limerick (UHL)’s emergency department “just to see how things are this Saturday in November”. She reported that they were “not too bad at all after a busy week”.
This garnered the attention of Friends of Ennis Hospital who have subsequently contacted the Minister’s office to extend an invitation for the Dún Laoghaire TD “to come and meet us in Kilrush for a West Clare cup of tea”.
The Clare Echo has obtained the correspondence sent by Friends of Ennis Hospital PRO, Deirdre Culligan. “In KIlrush town we have quite a few residential centres for the elderly as our population you will be aware is tending very much towards the older end of the population scale. I am sure their residents would be delighted with a visit from the health minister. We do think a visit to our market town would be most valuable to you as you examine options regarding Urgent & Emergency Care in our region.
“We are confident that after your first-hand experience then, and only then, will you be in a position to reconsider your comment about having acute hospital services ‘every ten minutes’ and also realise the reality that 40% of our population experiences with long travel times and why we, as a campaign, continually point out that Option B and/or Option C cannot be built in Limerick city or county”.
