MARGARET Griffin was one of 147 people left waiting on chairs and trolleys on the corridors of the emergency department (ED) and other wards at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) this Monday (September 29).
“It’s like a war zone,” the 70-year-old Moyross native told this reporter, as she and her daughter ventured outside the hospital for a breath of fresh air.
The near record level of overcrowding at the hospital was creating chaos for patients and staff across this Monday.
Trolleys with patients hooked up to intravenous lines, sick bowls, and urine bottles, lay cheek to jowl along the ED and its waiting zones. At times, staff had to squeeze past colleagues trying to treat patients on the overcrowded corridors. A notice on the floor of the ED read: “Do Not Obstruct Door Movement Area”.
Staff, including consultants, doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, and porters weaved in and out of trolleys backed up in the corridors.
There were 54 patients at the UHL ED waiting for a bed this Monday morning, a further 93 on trolleys on wards, according to figures published by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
Ms Griffin said that “nobody should have to work in overcrowded spaces”.
“I’m here since 10 o’clock this morning,” she said, six hours later at 4pm.
“I saw a doctor after an hour and got an X-ray, blood taken, and a heart trace, and I haven’t seen anyone since,” she explained.
“I think its my heart. I’m just waiting.”
She described the scenes as being like “a war-zone. The trolleys are double parked.”
“The waiting area is full, the departments inside are full, and then you go into the (ED) which is full, it’s ridiculous.”
Ms Griffin’s main issue, she said, was a lack of privacy, as trolleys with patients and loved ones are almost attached to one another in the cramped conditions.
“When the doctor examined me, there was another patient there, there is no privacy there,” she said.
The HSE Mid West said this morning that the opening of a new 96-bed block, constructed on the site of the hospital, was “imminent” and apologised for patient delays.
In a statement this Monday afternoon, HSE Mid West apologised to “all patients who are currently facing long waiting times for an inpatient bed”.
It said UHL was “experiencing record demand through the emergency department, with an increase of 11 per cent in attendances so far this year”.
This increase, it added, “is the highest increase in demand of any hospital in the country”.
The HSE spokesman said that “UHL has also had the highest ED admissions in the country this year – at 21,195 – which is five per cent greater 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.”
To mitigate pressure on UHL, HSE Mid West said it has “enhanced and expanded access to urgent care facilities as alternatives to the ED pathway”.
