Donnelly says UHL incident ‘shouldn’t have happened’
THE Health Minister has said an incident in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) where efforts were made to remove an elderly dementia patient from his bed at 4am ‘absolutely should not have happened’.
Stephen Donnelly has said he wants a full briefing from UHL after the Irish Daily Mail revealed that, last weekend, the man, who is aged in his 80s and suffers from dementia, was awoken in the early hours to be discharged.
This comes as the hospital saw record overcrowding with 150 patients waiting on trolleys yesterday. Mr Donnelly refused to answer questions on whether this was an isolated incident and said he wants a full account of what happened from UHL, the HSE and the Department of Health before he comments further.
‘I’m certainly not satisfied with what happened,’ he said.
‘I read the report; the report is very concerning. And it is right and proper that the hospital has apologised unreservedly for what happened. That absolutely should not have happened. Before I make any other judgments... I want the full briefing on it.’
During the incident, the pensioner, a patient at the geriatric emergency medicine (GEM) unit, refused to leave his bed as he felt he was too unwell to be moved.
A decision was taken by staff to call security as the man became increasingly agitated and confused as to why he was being removed at such a time. Security arrived at the ward but refused to remove the man given the sensitivities involved and the level of distress witnessed.
UHL said there was a delay in securing an ambulance to move the patient from the hospital back to his community setting but added that moving patients in the early hours of the morning ‘is not our usual practice’.
The hospital ‘sincerely apologised’ for the incident.
Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea described the incident as ‘unconscionable’, telling the Mail: ‘Nobody can stand over and defend that type of carryon. These sorts of things should not be happening.’
The Limerick City deputy added: ‘The facilities at UHL are not sufficient to cater for the population, that’s the bottom line. Until that’s solved, there will continue to be problems. I’m getting complaints all the time about UHL... The Government will have to demonstrate quickly how it plans to solve the issue.’
Mr O’Dea called for a new block being built at UHL to become operational as a matter of urgency.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation reported that 150 patients were waiting on trolleys in UHL yesterday, the highest figure at the hospital since the trolley watch list began in 2006. This was the second day in a row of record numbers of patients waiting on trolleys at the hospital. The HSE’s own figures showed 103 patients in UHL were on trolleys at 8am yesterday – 47 in the emergency department and 56 across other wards.
The figures showed that 32 of those on trolleys were waiting more than 24 hours and 12 of those were aged 75 or over.
Responding to the figures, the Health Minister said: ‘There is no standing over those kinds of numbers.’
He added that the Government has invested more in UHL than any other hospital, with 1,000 extra staff since 2020, and a new 192-bed unit being built. ‘The capacity has been put in place. Do they need more? Yes, they do. But there must be reform in that hospital,’ he added.
Minister Donnelly was asked whether the midwest region needed another hospital, and replied that the Government is building 192 beds, with 90 extra beds also being added to capacity. ‘That is a second hospital,’ he said.
He also said he has ‘confidence’ in Sandra Broderick, who recently took on the role of chief executive of the HSE midwest health region.