UHL Medical Board warns overcrowding is leading to 'unacceptable' risks to patients

Eva Osborne

The Medical Board at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) is warning that overcrowding is leading to unacceptable risks to patients.

The Board wants a development board for the new hospital site to be appointed immediately.

A site at Raheen, two kilometres from UHL, was acquired by the State for a new hospital.

Chair of the hospital's Medical Board, Professor Joe Devlin, said the new site in Raheen needs to be built urgently.

"But we still don't have a board and a chair developing that site and planing for getting planning permission and phasing the moving of resources around so that we can safely transfer services there," he said.

"And while all this is happening, the risk continues of course.

"Until we have the new stock, we don't have any news beds, other than the ones that were already planned. Some were opened around the turn of the year."

Devlin said HIQA has identified a number of problems in the Midwest.

"They reviewed our region as a whole. It's a highly unusual step.

"They concluded that we were both under capacity for beds and also under capacity for staff.

"Limerick University Hospital delivers more acute care than any other acute hospital in the whole State.

"It does so with fewer beds than any other model four hospital in the whole State."