Private health provider tapped to deliver hospital in Limerick

The Irish Examiner can also confirm that talks are under way with a healthcare non-profit to build an additional healthcare facility in the region

University Hospital Limerick. Picture Dan Linehan

A proposal to build an elective hospital in Limerick through a partnership with UL Hospitals Group and private health provider UPMC is being actively considered, the Irish Examiner can reveal.

The discussions come against a backdrop of incessant overcrowding in University Hospital Limerick, which reached record levels at the end of January, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

In the wake of this overcrowding, the health watchdog Hiqa has taken steps to engage with the hospital for "the past few weeks" on possible short-term solutions. Hiqa has also now asked the HSE national executives for a “medium-term” solution to this problem.

Una Quish at home in Castletroy, Limerick, with her son Noah. She drives two hours to Crumlin rather than risk overcrowding at UHL.

The issue has reached such levels that one Limerick mother, Una Quish, said she brings her child to the children's hospital in Crumlin — a two-hour drive — in preference to repeating waits of up to 12 hours at UHL.

Independent councillor Seamus Morris, a member of the Regional Health Forum West, called for creative solutions, saying people in Tipperary are so reluctant to go to the overcrowded hospital that they delay calling an ambulance when seriously ill.

Marie McMahon, a member of the Midwest Hospital Campaign, has advocated for change since her husband died after spending 36 hours on a trolley.

“We have the highest-paid executives in our health service, and we can’t get a decent bed for our loved ones. It’s like they don’t care, there is no care,” she said.

“We don’t matter, the people don’t matter, the ordinary person in the street doesn’t matter.” 

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Emergency care accounts for 83% of in-patient beds, leaving less than one-in-five beds for elective care, said Professor Brian Lenehan, UL Hospitals Group chief clinical director.

A number of solutions are being considered as the hospital has been “in crisis” with Covid-19, in addition to extremely high patient numbers, he said. This includes discussions with UPMC, a global nonprofit healthcare enterprise with 40 hospitals and 800 clinical locations worldwide.

The American healthcare provider already has five sites in Ireland, including a cancer centre in Cork.

“We have as a group worked closely in the last year with UPMC, and we have a proposal which we have shared with all key stakeholders in health to develop a 150-bed hospital in Coonagh in Limerick,” said Prof Lenehan.

This could see UHL staff working in “a public hospital” built by UPMC, he said.

“The model we are working on is one whereby UPMC would build the hospital. The hospital would then be operated jointly by ourselves and UPMC under the governance of the UL Hospitals Group,” he said.

UHL is a model 4 acute-level hospital, and the group also has three model 2 hospitals in Ennis, Nenagh, and Limerick for low-risk patients.

“What we need is a model 3 hospital, an elective or subacute hospital, a hospital that is dealing with scheduled care rather than unscheduled care,” Prof Lenehan said.

They would also welcome "a new HSE-built and HSE-funded model 3 elective hospital in the Midwest” if that option was available, he said, "and would equally welcome the green light for UL Hospitals Group with UPMC to deliver that capacity". 

Now that pressures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic are winding down, there is “an opportunity” to consider strategic options, he said.

“A working group of UPMC, UL Hospital Group, University of Limerick, Limerick City Council, and Limerick 2030 have been actively engaged to provide a solution to tackle waiting lists in the Midwest region,” said a spokesman for UPMC.

Dr Niamh Cummins, a lecturer in public health at the University of Limerick, described emergency department overcrowding, in general, as “really a canary in the coalmine". 

“Emergency department overcrowding is a real indicator there is something wrong in the health system — the entire health system across general practice, primary care to the actual hospital systems,” she said.