OVERCROWDING at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) this Monday (September 29) was at near record levels, with over 100 more patients left waiting on trolleys for in-hospital beds than any other Irish hospital.
At the same time, the HSE said that the opening of a new 96-bed block at UHL is “imminent”.
There were 147 patients without a bed at UHL this morning, including 54 patients on trolleys in the hospital’s emergency department (ED) and 93 on wards elsewhere, according to figures from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
This stands just a hair’s breadth away from the record 150 patients recorded on trolleys at UHL on February 7, 2024 – the highest number ever recorded.
Just yards from the overcrowded Limerick ED lies the first of three proposed 96-bed blocks at UHL, expected to be opened in the coming days.
The ED and wards at UHL are consistently the most overcrowded nationally, with demand from a catchment of over 400,000 from across Limerick, Clare, north Tipperary, and parts of north Cork and Kerry.
In 2009, 24-hour emergency departments at St John’s, Nenagh, and Ennis hospitals were reconfigured to UHL, which has been the focus of significant criticism and protest over the past number of years – including when 11,000 took to the streets in January 2023 to call for an end to the hospital overcrowding crisis at UHL.
An inquest last year into the death of Aoife Johnston in December 2022 at UHL, heard from doctors that the “gargantuanly overcrowded” ED was “like a death trap” on the weekend the 16-year-old Shannon girl presented there with queried sepsis amidst chronic patient overcrowding and understaffing.
Ms Johnston waited over 13 hours for life saving medication that should have been administered to her within minutes of her arrival.
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”.
However, it is also clear that pressure is mounting on ED alternatives, as local injury units and GP-referral medical assessment units at Nenagh Hospital and St John’s hospitals “are now managing approximately 1,300 patients per week”.
The HSE Mid West said it recently “lost access to 50 sub-acute/rehabilitation beds in the region” due to a new community nursing unit in Nenagh having to go through a “re-registration process with HIQA”. It added the 50-bed long term residential unit should commence before the end of this year.
Limerick Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan said that an additional hospital, including a second 24-hour ED in the Mid Was, is needed.
He claimed that the UL Hospitals Group “confirmed that at least an additional 400 beds are needed at UHL”, adding that “there simply isn’t the space at UHL for this volume of additional beds. These must be provided at a different location and at a new model three hospital.”
This comes as a report from health watchdog HIQA is due in the coming days on recommendations for healthcare in the region – including the need for an additional ED.
Limerick Fianna Fáil TD this Monday confirmed that the long-awaited report has been presented to Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and will be published “in the coming days”.
The report is understood to include a review on national health policy and information on regulatory inspections of UHL and other Mid West hospitals.
