HIQA inspections of the Emergency Department at UHL will not resolve the overcrowding issues at the hospital serving North Tipp, Limerick and Clare.
That’s the view of Nenagh based Councillor Seamie Morris who has long campaigned for changes to the current set-up.
The health watchdog has received an evaluation of the current factors influencing the chronic situation from the Hospital Group CEO.
However Seamie Morris is far from convinced this will achieve anything.
“Unfortunately it’s a bit like Lannigan’s Ball – they’ve stepped in and stepped out of UHL several times and have made reports.
“The reports haven’t been acted. In reality what is needed here are the reopening of Nenagh, St John’s and Ennis 24 hour A&E’s.
“We need the Minister to step in here and change the policy – it’s the policy of reconfiguring emergency services into one hospital in Limerick that has caused all this problem. It cannot be fixed until that policy is reversed.”
Seamie Morris also says an elective only hospital for the mid-west is not what’s needed to resolve overcrowding issues at University Hospital Limerick.
Labour leader and Tipperary TD Alan Kelly has been pushing for a stand-alone facility catering for elective surgery as a wat to alleviate overcrowding in UHL.
However Councillor Morris disagrees.
“It would be better if Alan did what he said he was going to do before he got elected many years ago when he said he would try and protect or reopen the A&E services in Nenagh.
“We don’t need any more new buildings – we have the buildings. We have the A&E’s in Nenagh, Ennis and St John’s – they’re modern facilities, modern hospitals. All they need to do is reverse the policy of reconfiguration so that we can use those perfectly good hospitals that are there waiting for us.”
