A HOSPITAL campaign group, including the widow of a man who died on a trolley at University Hospital Limerick (UHL), is seeking a judicial review of plans to develop a second major hospital campus in Limerick. The group has condemned the decision to place the campus on a newly acquired 44-acre site in Raheen, instead of in County Clare.
Banner resident Marie McMahon of the Mid West Hospital Campaign Clare (MWHC) – whose husband Tommy Wynne died in 2018 after he spent 36 hours on a trolley in a corridor at UHL suffering with stroke-like symptoms – said the group has initiated an application to the High Court seeking a judicial review in relation to the Government’s decision on the future configuration of hospital services in the Mid West.
The application for the review was instigated by the group after Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill announced last Tuesday the HSE would be developing a second major hospital campus the 44-acre Raheen site.
Ms McMahon said the process of seeking the judicial review would take around “12 weeks” before a decision is made.
The HSE’s plan to develop a second major hospital campus in Limerick has caused upset in neighbouring Clare.
The only 24-hour emergency department (ED) in the Mid West region is located at the UHL Model 4 hospital campus, which caters to a catchment of over 450,000 across all of Limerick, Clare, and north Tipperary.
However, persistent and chronic patient overcrowding has continued unabated at UHL, despite the recent addition of a 96-bed block on site; the provision of step down beds in Ennis and Nenagh; as well as the transferring of some of UHL’s public patients to the newly-opened private Bon Secours Hospital Limerick.
For more than a decade, the Mid West Hospital Campaign Group has called for the re-establishment of a 24-hour ED service in Ennis, after it was reconfigured along with the ED services in Nenagh to Limerick in 2009.
Ms McMahon said the plan to develop a second hospital campus in Limerick was “made at the expense of the population of County Clare”.
“For the people of Clare, this decision feels like they’ve been left behind once again. Communities here are already travelling long distances and facing overcrowded emergency departments, and this decision risks continuing that reality for years to come.”
Ms McMahon, who’s husband had to travel 66km from their home in Ennistymon for treatment at UHL before he passed in 2018, said that “behind all of these reports and policies are real people. Families in Clare have had extremely difficult and sometimes traumatic experiences trying to access urgent care, and they deserve a healthcare system that recognises those realities”, hitting out at “healthcare inequality” for the Banner’s population.
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she was committed to further Government investment in Ennis and Nenagh.
The Minister said that 48 new beds and the redevelopment of equipment sterilisation and radiology services at Ennis Hospital was underway, as was 48 additional and replacement beds at Nenagh hospital, and a second 96-bed block at UHL.
Ms MacNeill explained that the 44-acres for development at Raheen is located 2km from UHL, and a half-hour drive from the Model 2 hospitals in Nenagh, north Tipperary, and Ennis.
Hilary Tonge, also of the MWHC Clare, said she hoped the legal process would prompt “renewed engagement and urgency” from some Clare politicians after what she claimed was a “lack of meaningful response and urgency from elected representatives”.
She said the group’s decision was only taken after “careful consideration” of a “deep concern felt across communities in County Clare”.
“The campaign will continue to advocate for a healthcare system that provides fair and safe access to emergency care for communities across the entire Mid West region,” said the group.