Clare group seeks High Court review of HSE plans to develop second Limerick campus

David Raleigh

A group, including the widow of a man who died on a trolley at University Hospital Limerick, is seeking a judicial review of HSE plans to develop a second major hospital campus in Limerick and not in Clare.

Banner resident Marie McMahon, whose husband, Tommy Wynne, died in 2018, after he spent 36 hours on a trolley in a corridor at UHL suffering with stroke-like symptoms.

Other patients, such as Eve Cleary (21) and Aoife Johnston (16) died at UHL in 2019 and 2022, respectively, having languished on trolleys during chronic overcrowding at the hospital.

Ms McMahon of the Mid-West Hospital Campaign-Clare said it had initiated an application to the High Court seeking a judicial review in relation to the Government’s decision on the future configuration of hospital services in the Mid-West.

The application for the judicial review was instigated by the group immediately after the Minister for Health announced last Tuesday the HSE would be developing a second major hospital campus on 44-acres at Raheen, Co Limerick.

Ms McMahon said the process of seeking the judicial review would take around “twelve weeks” before a decision is made.

The HSE’s plan to develop a second major hospital campus in Limerick has caused upset in neighbouring Clare.

The only 24-hour emergency department in the Mid-West region is located at the University Hospital Limerick Model 4 campus, for a catchment of over 450,000 across all of Limerick, all of Clare and north Tipperary.

However, persistent and chronic patient overcrowding has continued unabated at UHL, despite the recent addition of a 96-bed block on site; the provision of step-down beds in Ennis and Nenagh; as well as the transferring of some of UHL’s public patients to the newly opened privately operated Bon Secours Hospital Limerick.

For more than a decade, the Mid-West Hospital Campaign Group-Clare has called for the re-establishment of a 24-hour ED service in Ennis, after it was reconfigured along with the ED seevices in Nenagh to Limerick in 2009.

Ms McMahon said she was “disappointed that stronger leadership has not been shown by elected representatives in County Clare on an issue they believe is of critical importance to the future healthcare needs of the county”.

Ms McMahon the plan to develop a second hospital campus in Limerick was “made at the expense of the population of County Clare”.

“For the people of Clare, this decision feels like they’ve been left behind once again. Communities here are already travelling long distances and facing overcrowded emergency departments, and this decision risks continuing that reality for years to come.”

Ms McMahon, whose husband had to travel 66km from their home in Ennistymon to suffer on a trolley and die at University Hospital Limerick, said: “Behind all of these reports and policies are real people. Families in Clare have had extremely difficult and sometimes traumatic experiences trying to access urgent care, and they deserve a healthcare system that recognises those realities.”

“The people of Clare cannot be expected to continue enduring this level of healthcare inequality.”

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she was committed to further government “investment in Ennis and Nenagh”.

The minister said that 48 new beds and the redevelopment of equipment sterilisation and radiology services at Ennis Hospital were underway; as were 48 additional and replacement beds at Nenagh Hospital, and a second 96-bed block at UHL.

Ms MacNeill added that the 44-acres, for development at Raheen, is located 2km from UHL, and a half-hour drive from the model-two hospitals in Nenagh, north Tipperary, and Ennis, Co Clare.

Hilary Tonge, also of the MWHC-Clare, said she hoped the legal process would prompt “renewed engagement and urgency” from some Clare politicians after what she claimed was a “lack of meaningful response and urgency from elected representatives”.

Ms Tonge said the group’s decision was only taken after “careful consideration” of a “deep concern felt across communities in County Clare”.

“The campaign will continue to advocate for a healthcare system that provides fair and safe access to emergency care for communities across the entire Mid-West region,” said the group.