'Drive to Save Lives' to highlight ongoing health crisis in the region
The event takes place this weekend
The MID-WEST Hospital Campaign (MWHC) says their “Drive to Save Lives” is to highlight the ongoing health crisis in the region.
A convoy of vehicles will, on Saturday, April 13, navigate a route including Ennis, Nenagh, and Limerick city to mark the 15th anniversary of the closure of three emergency departments in the region.
It comes as emergency departments in Nenagh, Ennis and St John's Hospitals were closed 15 years ago.
People have been encouraged to take part with their car, van, tractor, motorcycle, or bike.
An activist with the campaign, Mary Cahillane, said: “UHL is consistently the most overcrowded A&E in the country. We have one emergency department to cover 425,000 people, under these circumstances ‘reconfiguration’ cannot be made to work.”
Another activist from the campaign Charlotte Keane, said that it feels like people in the Mid-West are not being heard.
“So we must make ourselves visible. We’re calling on Limerick people to come out in force on April 13, to join the convoy through the city or line the route and cheer it on as it passes.
"We will be leaving from St John’s Hospital from around 12pm on the day to join up with convoys coming from Ennis and Nenagh, and together the people of the Mid-West will travel down O’Connell Street and past UHL on our way to a rally outside Houston Hall in Raheen Industrial Estate where the HSE CEO Bernard Gloster has an office,” she added