'Busiest weekend ever' at Limerick hospital's emergency department

UNIVERSITY Hospital Limerick (UHL) has had its "busiest weekend ever" at its Emergency Department (ED).

It comes amid a surge in patients with Covid-19, flu and RSV, while there are also significant numbers of people with trauma injuries following slips and trips in the icy weather.

The hospital has warned that anyone coming to the ED with a non-urgent condition will face an "exceptionally long wait" for care.

All but the most urgent elective surgeries and outpatient diagnostics have been cancelled amid "record high" attendance on Sunday, which saw 221 people presenting. With 251 people on Saturday, hospital bosses said it's the "busiest weekend ever recorded" in the Dooradoyle facility.

Normally, there are between 150 and 180 patients in the ED on a Sunday.

Medical staff have been redeployed to the ED, while some trauma patients have been moved to Croom Orthopaedic Hospital for treatment.

A hospital spokesperson said: "We have been directly contacting all patients with surgery or diagnostics appointments scheduled for today, and these appointments will be rescheduled at the earliest opportunity. We apologise to everyone impacted by the decision, which was taken in the interests of patient safety and to help healthcare teams focus on inpatients, emergency patients, and the most time-critical elective patients."

Less acutely unwell patients are asked to first consider minor injury units, including at St John's Hospital in the city, out-of-hours GP services and pharmacists before attending ED.

Injury Units in Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s are operating as normal.

Opening hours for Ennis and Nenagh are 8am -8pm and St John’s Injury Unit is open 8am-7pm.

Figures published earlier this Monday from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) revealed there are 92 patients on trolleys this Monday at UHL.

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Some 47 are on trolleys in the ED, with 45 elsewhere in the hospital.

It comes with 760 patients on trolleys at public hospitals across the country.

The union's general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: "Today’s trolley figures are unacceptably high. This level of overcrowding is a danger to patients and staff, alike. The HSE, government and each individual hospital group must take urgent action today and pull every lever available to them to ease the pressure in our hospitals."

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said the "overcrowding" is "entirely predictable".

"The INMO has been warning this was going to happen, medics have been doing the same. Warnings from those who are working on the frontline should not fall on deaf ears. Behind these figures are patients who are being stripped of their dignity and privacy while being deemed sick enough to be admitted to hospital. We know that more often than not our members are working in conditions that are unsafely staffed, meaning that providing safe care in an overcrowded environment is impossible," she added.

"Serious and immediate intervention is needed today from the new Taoiseach and the Minister for Health," added the general secretary.