Failure to plan ahead has led to the sustained overcrowding situation that Tipperary people are facing at University Hospital Limerick.
That’s according to Conor Reidy from the Nenagh Needs Its A&E campaign. They are calling for the reopening of accident and emergency departments at Nenagh and Ennis hospitals.
A mass protest is taking place in Limerick this weekend about the failed reconfiguration of UHL and calling on the government to reopen A&E departments around the Mid-West to ease pressure on the Dooradoyle facility.
Speaking to Tipp Today, Conor Reidy said the people of the Mid-West deserved better and urged the people of Tipperary to support this protest.
“Since Christmas, since the collapse of the centre of excellence in UHL in Dooradoyle, you have a number of fairly high profile consultants who have come out and said that very same thing – that things were not put in place in 2009, that the roots of everything that the people of the Mid-West – our families, our friends, our elderly and our children – have been put through, all of that has its roots in what was done in and around the period of 2009 to 2011.”
Tanya Devito McMahon – also from the Nenagh Needs its A&E Campaign – said that the use of Nenagh A&E for surge capacity is pointless if the hospital isn’t properly staffed.
Also speaking to Tipp Today, Tanya said that these A&E departments need real beds if they’re going to ease the overcrowding crisis at UHL.
“Today, there’s 60 people on trollies in UHL, there’s 7 people on trollies in Ennis and there’s 10 people on trollies in Nenagh.
“Now in Nenagh we were told they were closing all day surgeries, elective surgeries were cancelled, the day wards were being opened for surge beds, yet there’s 10 people on trollies and we have reports that there was no extra staff brought in, so I don’t understand how that works, we’re just literally moving people from trollies in UHL to moving them to Ennis and Nenagh and that has to stop.”
