WITH a Christmas deadline looming for Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill to announce which of the recommendations made by HIQA in its report on emergency health services in the Mid West will be implemented, a local TD says there must be backing for a second emergency department (ED).
Limerick Labour TD Conor Sheehan said that government must make a firm Cabinet decision this week to deliver a second ED for the Mid West, following another week of severe overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
Speaking in the Dáil, Deputy Sheehan said the Minister for Health’s response failed to engage with the scale of the crisis and offered no evidence that conditions are improving for patients or staff.
Deputy Sheehan said: “Families across Limerick, Clare, and Tipperary are once again facing unbearable waits in an emergency department that has been pushed beyond safe capacity for years.”
“This is not a winter surge. It is an entrenched failure by this government to plan for the healthcare needs of the Mid West. When 103 people are without a bed in a single day, the human impact is impossible to ignore. It is older people, children, and vulnerable patients who pay the price.”
Deputy Sheehan said the core issue is that capacity has not kept pace with population need, “and a second emergency department is no longer optional”.
“The commitment in the Sláintecare Implementation Strategy to expand acute capacity was clear. The question is why it has not been delivered for the Mid West?
“The failures go beyond acute capacity. Government inaction on flu vaccination has compounded pressures that were entirely predictable.
“Uptake rates for children and healthcare workers remain far below targets, and this government chose not to procure the enhanced flu vaccine despite strong evidence of its effectiveness for older people.
This is not planning. It is penny-wise, pound-foolish policy that places both scheduled care and patient outcomes at risk.”
Deputy Sheehan said that his party is calling “for three immediate steps: a Cabinet decision … to build a new hospital and second ED for the Mid West; a universal and free flu vaccination programme supported by a strong public awareness campaign; and full accountability for why the enhanced vaccine was not rolled out”.