The actions taken to ease pressure on the Emergency Department at University Hospital Limerick since the declaration of a major internal incident last Monday are to remain in place over the coming days.
They have included transferring admitted patients in the ED on trolleys to inpatient wards in UHL and the opening of surge bed capacity at Nenagh, Ennis and St John’s hospitals.
However management say the numbers waiting for an inpatient bed across the hospital group are still too high and patients continue to face lengthy wait times to see a doctor, in particular patients with less urgent healthcare needs.
They expect high numbers of attendances at ED and high numbers of admitted patients waiting for beds to continue into the coming weeks.
A meeting of the HCMT yesterday confirmed that hospital-wide visiting restrictions at UHL are to remain in place.
Outpatient clinics will resume at UHL on Monday next and patients with an appointment are advised to attend.
However planned reductions in scheduled care at UHL mean that only time-critical elective surgery will take place next week.
The decision has also been take to delay plans to resume day surgery at the groups Model 2 Hospitals next week which will result in cancellations for patients scheduled for day case procedures in Nenagh, Ennis and St John’s hospitals.
