A GROUP campaigning for Clare to have a new hospital so that seriously ill patients don’t have to travel huge distances for urgent treatment said it will “bring West Clare to the Minister” if Limerick TD and Minister Patrick O’Donovan won’t come to West Clare.
The Friends of Ennis Hospital group commented on recent HSE data showing that University Hospital Limerick (UHL) once again broke all attendance records last year, with 95,373 patients attending the emergency department (ED) in 2025, making it the busiest ED in the country last year.
This represented an increase in patient numbers of 8,000 from 2024, highlighting the constant pressure on staff in the Dooradoyle facility year on year, the group said.
The group said that it welcomed the government’s “decision to progress all three HIQA options, but in reality, with all the best will in the world, with attendances rising on average of over 4,700 per annum since 2021, we look forward to 2026 with some trepidation in the expectation that attendances this year will exceed 100,000Â -which is far higher than any other hospital in the state,” the group said in a statement.
This comes on foot of three recent recommendations by health watchdog HIQA into emergency healthcare in the Mid West that operations at UHL be expanded onsite (Option A), offsite (Option B), and that a new Model 3 hospital with accompanying ED be built in the region (Option C).
“We firmly believe that the Option B campus needs to be located in Clare.”
A spokesperson said the group was “very disappointed to hear Minister Patrick O’Donovan state on Limerick radio on December 23rd that our local representatives should not be ‘pitching sites for their own four crossroads’.”
“We would remind the Minister that not all of us have the luxury of living under 50km from an acute hospital.”
The group pointed out that “with over 30,000 Clare people annually having to travel outside of Clare for emergency care, that includes an awful lot of crossroads that the Minister has probably never even travelled on”.
“We as a campaign remain committed to the fight for a hospital in Clare for Clare, and if the Minister for Health is not interested in accepting our invitation to visit West Clare, we plan over the coming weeks to bring West Clare to the Minister.”