Overcrowding in our hospitals here to stay

... unless we make major changes, warns clinician

OVERCROWDING at one of the country’s major hospitals will never end unless there is a sea change in healthcare, a senior clinician has said.

Paul Burke, chief clinical director of the UL Hospitals group, yesterday gave reporters a candid insight into the daily challenges faced at University Hospital Limerick.

The hospital had the highest number of patients on trolleys in the country yesterday, despite last year opening a new state-ofthe-art €25million emergency department.

Figures published by the Irish Nurses and a Midwives Organisation showed there were 27 patients on trolleys in the ED, and 25 on trolleys on wards.

Journalists were taken on a tour of the hospital and management outlined how it is trying Crisis ongoing: Paul Burke to tackle waiting lists and overcrowding with what it indicated are inadequate resources.

Management blamed the crisis on a severe lack of consultants, low bed capacity, and high attendance rates.

The hospital is catering for a catchment population of 385,000 in Limerick, Clare and Tipperary, not including those coming from north Cork, north Kerry and south Tipperary.

Some 7,000 people are waiting more than a year for an outpatient appointment; however, management stated it did not receive any funding last year to target the waiting list.

The UL Hospitals group, which employs 3,600 people, is creaking under ‘old’ and ‘not-fit-forpurpose’ infrastructure, said Noreen Spillane, chief operations officer. She said: ‘There has been a bit of a myth that building our new emergency department would alleviate overcrowding... [it] was never going to sort that problem out.’

Despite a brighter and more comfortable ED, the problem of overcrowding remained, she said, adding: ‘All of the departments within it work very well, apart from the area where we have patients who need admission. It’s because we just don’t have beds for those patients.’

Echoing these sentiments, Mr Burke said: ‘The attendances this year to date, nationally, are up about 7%. But, they are up 17% in our emergency department. So that in itself creates huge pressures.’

In 2016, 66,000 attended the hospital. This rose to nearly 68,000 last year. However, despite Ireland’s growing elderly population, management admitted it did not have a plan to deal with the tsunami of older patients coming in. ‘I can’t see any silver bullet,’ said Ms Spillane.

Mr Burke said he can’t ever see the ED crisis being solved, unless there are drastic changes in the healthcare system.

Management have applied for Government funding for a 96bed unit, and Mr Burke said: ‘When that happens, you’ll have less overcrowding in your ED, and if you’ve less overcrowding... more people will come. It’s a never-ending problem unless you change the model. If we keep doing it the same way, it’ll just keep happening.’