The people of North Tipperary and the Mid-West were sold a pup by the HSE.
That’s the view of local Labour TD Alan Kelly who says people in the area are paying the price for the reconfiguration of University Hospital Limerick.
The Dooradoyle facility serves North Tipperary, Limerick and Clare – it regularly tops the INMO trolley watch list as the most overcrowded hospital in the country.
Deputy Kelly says the decision to create a centre of excellence in UHL for cancer care and other disciplines was not the wrong one.
However he feels the decision to close local A&E’s and critical care units before the total infrastructure was in place was.
“This was very much predictable because in North Tipperary and in the Mid-West in general we were the guinea pigs for reconfiguration where there was meant to be a massive investment across the network and particularly in UHL.
“That didn’t happen over a number of decades and we are paying the price for it now.”
Alan Kelly says compared to other regions the Mid-West is lagging far behind on a number of fronts.
“Compared to other networks we simply do not have enough beds, we do not have enough consultants and we do not have staff. We are negative on all three of them by a considerable amount.
“They all have to be upped because the scale of the population, the amount of people who need to use these services – compared to similar type of services, take Beaumont in Dublin or other hospitals – is not comparable. We do not have the same resources. And that’s where the government really need to target now.”
