UNIVERSITY Hospital Limerick (UHL) hit a milestone of 200 days as the most overcrowded hospital in the country, according to figures supplied by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s Trolley Watch count and records kept by the Limerick Post.
The trolley count – taken each weekday – logs the numbers of admitted patients without an in-hospital bed and being treated on trolleys in the emergency department (ED) or in overflow wards. It does not include weekends or bank holidays.
On Thursday last (July 24), UHL reached 200 days at the top of that table and, in the week since, there were 125 patients recorded as waiting on a trolley for an in-hospital bed on one day alone.
This comes in a year where the hospital has experienced its highest ever number of presentations at its ED, with a record high of 335 patients arriving at the department on January 28.
Mother of the late Eve Cleary and activist with the Mid West Hospital Campaign (MWHC) Melanie Sheehan Cleary, who ran for the Dáil last year, told the Limerick Post that overcrowding at the hospital is “just not getting any better”.
“There seems to be no one with the will the change it. There isn’t even a winter surge right now – is it going to be twice as bad when winter hits?”
Ms Sheehan Cleary is a mother of six, including the late Eve Cleary (21) who passed away in 2019 just hours after she was discharged from University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
Eve went to the hospital after hurting herself in a fall and, less than four hours after being discharged, suffered a cardiac arrest caused by a blood clot that travelled into her lung.
“We’re very disappointed that the HIQA report (into the hospital overcrowding and services in the Mid West) is still not ready. We’re told now it will be September,” a campaign spokesperson said.
“We met with the Department of Health and we were told that even if a new ED is approved, it would take seven years to become a reality. That’s far too long.”
Ms Sheehan Cleary said that the MWHC still demands the reopening of EDs at St John’s, Ennis, and Nenagh hospitals, but, at very least, there have to be measures to relieve the overcrowding in the short term.
“Making Nenagh a step down didn’t work. If they would even agree to restore the ICU at St John’s for elderly patients, that would relieve some of the pressure on the ED. No elderly person should have to endure lying on a trolley like that,” she told the Limerick Post.
Record ED presentations
In response to the 200-day milestone, a hospital spokesman said that “in 2025, University Hospital Limerick has been managing its highest recorded levels of ED attendance. Up to July 20th, 51,465 patients attended ED, 10 per cent higher than at the same point in 2024.
“Average daily ED attendance at UHL in 2025 has been 262, and daily presentations have exceeded 300 on 25 days, including January 28, when 334 patients attended, the highest ever recorded at our ED on a single day.”
The hospital spokesman continued that “these figures confirm that UHL is seeing the highest number of patients on a daily basis nationally, and that attendances have increased by 10 per cent over the past 12 months (compared with a national average increase in ED attendances of 2.6 per cent)”.
“UHL has also had the highest admissions from ED nationally this year, at 16,018, which is four per cent greater than at the same point in 2024.
“Throughout this extended period of daily management of high ED activity, we have enhanced and expanded access to urgent care facilities as alternatives to the ED pathway. Injury units and GP-referral medical assessment units, Nenagh and St John’s Hospitals are now managing approximately 1,200 patients per week,” the spokesman added.
The spokesman said hospital staff and management “look forward to the opening of the first 96-bed block at UHL this September”, which has been touted by many as a means of relieving the chronic overcrowding at the hospital.
“Over the past seven months, we have also opened two new rapid-build 16-bed wards at the hospital, and have recently applied for an extension that will accommodate a third 16-bed unit,” the spokesman added.
“Meanwhile, to further improve emergency access at UHL, additional consultants are on duty at weekends and bank holidays, and we are sincerely grateful to our healthcare teams for their tireless efforts to meet our current capacity challenges.”
