HSE chief says days waiting on trolleys in UHL is ‘completely not’ acceptable
Bernard Gloster was on RTÉ's Morning Ireland to discuss overcrowding concerns at the Limerick hospital
THE CHIEF executive of the HSE has said he has full confidence in UHL as a hospital for the public to go to but did not confirm if he has confidence in the hospital’s management.
CEO Bernard Gloster appeared on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland to respond to ongoing overcrowding at UHL where he was asked by presenter Gavin Jennings if he has confidence in the management of UHL.
“...that singles down to a small group of individual people and I’m not going to prejudge the outcome of what any reviews or investigations are in relation to that.
“What I have said previously is, I am confident in the arrangements I have in place today and I am confident to say to people if you need to go to hospital, you can go to that hospital, you should go to that hospital.
“I live in that area myself, my family go to that hospital, I don’t have any fear of the clinical care for people attending that hospital,” he said.
Mr Gloster also said that there are times when there is no more than one emergency consultant working in the emergency department at UHL after 5pm and at weekends.
“At times there will be and at times there won’t be,” Mr Gloster said and he mentioned that people spending days waiting on a trolley at the hospital is not acceptable.
“I think it’s important to reflect the fact that in the first nine weeks of this year alone, attendances at our emergency departments across the country have gone up by 13% and in Limerick by 16%. Those kinds of numbers don’t mean anything to people when they’re waiting but we have seen, certainly post-Christmas a very significant change in attendances at hospital,” Mr Gloster said.
On Tuesday this week, elective surgeries were suspended at all UL Hospital Group’s five hospitals. It is understood that UHL was seeing very high levels of people presenting at the emergency department.
Surgeries in UHL, St John’s Hospital, Croom Orthopaedic Hospital, and hospitals in Ennis and Nenagh were all postponed until this Thursday morning.
“I have been very much to the fore in calling out the problems in Limerick and the challenges that the team there need to respond to as well as the support I need to give them,” Mr Gloster said.
“What I would say is, this is a hospital group that last year, was also under serious pressure at the start of the year and despite that, delivered one of the best elective performances on waiting lists throughout the year.
“I am conscious there is a long way to go this year and we will get to reschedule those procedures,” Mr Gloster added.
According to Mr Gloster at 8pm on Wednesday night, there were 171 people awaiting a bed on trolleys in emergency departments across the country, 23 of those were in Limerick.
Mr Gloster also said that there were 59 people on extra trolleys in various inpatient wards across Irish hospitals with 38 of those being in Limerick.
“That is certainly a worry but it’s a distributed risk” Mr Gloster said.
“I absolutely do accept that they [UHL] need more beds and there are more beds coming. There’s 96 beds coming on profile there at the start of next year and there’s a further 96 where the enabling works have started,” Mr Gloster said.
A lot has happened in the 13 years since the reconfiguration of the health service in the Mid-West according to Mr Gloster.
“Limerick didn’t end up with the beds that would have been expected at the time. The investment in community health care across the country has fundamentally changed also. So there is very significant investment and resource there. I’m not satisfied we are using it in the best way that we can, but Limerick needs more, we also need to do different with what we have,” Mr Gloster said.
Mr Gloster also mentioned that the acute medical assessment units in St John’s, Nenagh, and Ennis will soon move to a 24-hour system.