Hospital group sorry for patient ‘distress’
THE UL Hospitals Group will today apologise for ‘the distress and the lack of dignity and privacy’ experienced by patients, following a damning report into overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
A Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report released in June found conditions in the emergency department at UHL raised concerns around patient safety. It also found that inspectors were not assured the hospital had adequate measures in place to address overcrowding, ineffective patient flow, insufficient nurse staffing levels and prolonged ED wait times.
Professor Colette Cowan, UL Hospitals Group CEO, will today apologise for these findings before the Oireachtas Health Committee. Prof. Cowan is expected to tell the committee that a surge in demand for the hospital’s services has contributed to the issues outlined in the report.
‘At the outset, I wish to acknowledge the main findings of the HIQA report. I apologise for the distress and the lack of dignity and privacy experienced by far too many patients seeking to access care in UHL over several years and in particular over the last 18 months when we have seen further growth in demand for healthcare following the Covid-19 pandemic,’ she will state in her opening statement to the committee.
‘This is not the kind of care environment we wish to provide for the people of the midwest. It is not for want of effort on the part of the management team or commitment on the part of our staff.’ She will add that the hospital group is working with the HSE National Support Team and with Mid West Community Healthcare to build on ways to deal with growing demand.
‘This is not the kind of report any hospital manager wishes to read but we must respond to it,’ she will say. ‘And we are responding to it. A detailed compliance plan developed in the wake of the HIQA report includes actions to be taken in the short, medium and long term.
‘The success of this plan hinges on the efforts of all stakeholders, locally and nationally, inside and outside of the hospital system.’ She will also outline the ‘extraordinary demand’ for services since the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021, the ED at UHL saw a record 76,473 attendances. In the first eight months of this year, ED attendances have risen by 7% and ED admissions by 25%.
The inpatient bed capacity at UHL is 530, which Prof. Cowan says falls ‘far short’ of the 642 beds needed to manage services.
She says that she hopes the publication of the HIQA report will be the ‘catalyst to address the fundamental mismatch between demand and resources that is particular to the midwest’.