'Mum spent 27 hours on a chair in UHL — why is it not getting better?'

Elective treatment cancellations followed the hospital's busiest week this year with an average of 245 patients at the UHL emergency department daily

Marie O'Connor echoed concerns expressed by others in the city around staffing levels at UHL. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

The daughter of a then 87-year-old woman who spent 27 hours on a chair at University Hospital Limerick in December 2022 said she is saddened to see lengthy delays at the hospital again this month.

Elective treatments were cancelled across UL Hospital Group last week for two days, although urgent and time-critical patients, including cancer patients, were unaffected.

The cancellations followed the hospital's busiest week this year with an average of 245 patients at the UHL emergency department daily.

Marie O’Connor, from Kilfinane, Limerick, said: “It’s more than a year now because mam went in there in December 2022, so it’s a year and four months now.

“We’ve had all of last year and we are still facing the same issues.” 

Since her mother was in the A&E she has visited the hospital frequently supporting various relatives including in recent months.

“We had a very hard year last year, it is still the hours and hours waiting (for a bed),” she said.

Mam was in again well before Christmas, there was still trolleys on both sides of the hall. She was on a trolley which was fantastic because she’d only had a chair the last time.

Ms O'Connor spoke to the Irish Examiner in January 2023 to share her concerns about overcrowding at the hospital, and has continued to raise the issue through other media and with local politicians.

“I still continue as much as I can to highlight it.

“I work as an operations coordinator for Local Link so I predominantly work with older people, and I’d be the one encouraging them to go into the hospital if I thought they were sick,” she said.

“If I thought for a minute they would be slapped on a trolley and no-one being a voice for them — being an advocate is not my role, but I’d hate to think they are being ignored.” 

She echoed concerns expressed by others in the city around staffing levels.

During one trip to the ED, she ended up helping a near-deaf man in his 90s who was alone and struggling to communicate with busy staff.

She also noticed “a language barrier” in some cases and queried whether foreign nurses receive supports in this area. 

We are hitting the papers at all times with still having the highest trolley numbers in the country,” she said. I still think that we’re (UHL) covering three counties and the population has grown so much, it’s across too much.

She emphasised: “Once you get past accident and emergency, let me tell you that Limerick hospital is a centre of excellence I think, because you definitely get the care. 

"It’s just to get past accident and emergency.” 

“There’s amazing staff” but in her experience not enough to go around.

She also pointed to a lack of health supports in the community for various vulnerable groups, not only the elderly, and suggested changing this could reduce pressures on the hospital.

“And the most worrying thing now is that older people do not want to into hospital,” she said. “They don’t want to go into the Regional (UHL) that is sad then as well.” 

One change she welcomes is the service supporting older people in the ED, saying during a recent visit following a fall her mother was “progressed quickly”.

The Geriatric Emergency Medicine (GEM) Unit was set up in October 2022 and expanded this winter. The team saw 1,788 patients between January and November last year.

Some 1,042 were discharged home, 222 transferred to a model 2 hospital, for example St John’s Hospital, and 524 admitted to UHL, the hospital said.

The GEM includes nurses, doctors and therapists from physiotherapy, occupational therapy, medical social work, among other roles.

UHL apologised to patients waiting for admission and impacted by deferrals of surgery last week.