Loughlinstown Hospital to lose emergency department in December

The HSE has confirmed that Dublin's Loughlinstown Hospital will lose its emergency department at the end of the month.

The closure was flagged in 2011 but a date has now been fixed. Patients will now be diverted to St Vincent's Hospital on the southside.

Yesterday, the CEOs of four Dublin hospitals wrote to the HSE issuing a stark warning about the strain on their resources.

Local TD Richard Boyd Barrett thinks St Vincent's could soon join those ranks as a result of the ED shutting.

"It is common in Vincents for people to be waiting days on trolleys to see a doctor or get a hospital bed," he said.

"If you have thousands more people from the Wicklow and Ballybrack and Shankill areas unloaded on the St Vincent's A&E it is undoubtedly going to cause chaos and cause further suffering for the people that use that hospital."