Top medic warns of 'epidemic' of health service modular builds without proper planning 

The emergency department at Cork University Hospital is too small, according to a senior doctor. Picture: Jim Coughlan

A top cancer doctor has warned there will be an “epidemic of modular builds” unless there is proper hospital planning to provide a long-term solution to overcrowding.

Director of cancer services at Cork University Hospital Professor Seamus O’Reilly welcomed the immediate changes over recent days to address overcrowding, but called for more long-term solutions.

The largest emergency departments in Munster are relatively new, with that in CUH opening in 2005 and at University Hospital Limerick in 2017.

However Prof O'Reilly said while there is a “beautiful patio area in front of the emergency department" at CUH,  the place is too small internally.

“We’ve had terminally ill patients in cubicles that are basically the size of a business-class seat on an aircraft and they can’t lie down,” he said.

There were 38 patients on trolleys at CUH on Monday after an intensive weekend effort to reduce this from over 70 earlier in the week.

“It’s like what Conor Deasy [clinical lead and consultant in emergency medicine at CUH] said. The buildings were never built for these numbers,” Prof O’ Reilly said.

"If we do business as usual here, then next year is going to be worse than this year because we will have an older population, we will have a bigger population and we are still at risk of pandemics.” 

He called for more focused attention on buildings where healthcare happens.

“The infrastructure is not fit for purpose, and what will happen is we will have modular buildings all over the country like portable buildings,” he warned.

“We will have an epidemic of modular builds and portable buildings to get over this crisis as a reaction, where we actually need bricks and mortar.” 

Prof O’ Reilly called for change in how challenges were approached.

“When Covid happened, the first thing people did was infrastructure projects to make the place infection-control proof," he said. 

"Normally the business plans for those kinds of things would take years. The pandemic also showed that when we wanted to be urgent that we could.” 

The site for an elective hospital in Cork was only confirmed last month, having been announced in the National Elective Ambulatory Strategy in December 2021.

“This [elective] hospital will allow infection-control infrastructure to be in place, it will allow more privacy for people,” he said.

“When you look at when it’s done properly; the new maternity hospital in Cork you never hear anymore about waiting lists for gynaecology in Cork." He said people do not hear about services that function well. 

He welcomed changes at CUH to support patients, saying: “If we do business as usual after a pandemic and all that has happened with it, then that would be a tragedy really.” 

Meanwhile, Fine Gael health spokesman Colm Burke has called for a healthcare forum to bring public, private, political and educational interests in healthcare together.

“The HSE, Department of Health and the Oireachtas Health Committee should be essential participants in any national healthcare forum,” he said.