Dementia patient who went missing from UHL 'could have been killed' - daughter

The distressed family have questioned how no one noticed the woman exiting her ward, the hospital building or the hospital grounds.

The INMO has said that staff at UHL feel as though they are in Groundhog Day as the crisis situation is becoming normalised. Picture: Dan Linehan

The family of an elderly woman with dementia, who went missing while awaiting treatment in the emergency department of a Limerick hospital, say that management told them overcrowding was to blame for the incident.

The daughter of the 79-year-old Limerick woman told the Irish Examiner her mother was only discovered missing after another patient at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) notified staff. She said her mother was missing for more than two hours before she was found by gardaí and ‘she could have been killed’.