Stephen Donnelly 'not satisfied with situation' at  University Hospital Limerick

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and  Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform Paschal Donohoe, at St Vincent’s University Hospital where they announced a plan to deliver 4,367 acute hospital in-patient beds by 2031. Picture: Bryan Brophy

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has insisted ongoing problems with trolley numbers at University Hospital Limerick (UHL) are a “complete outlier”, but admitted he is “not satisfied” at the figures still being seen.

At the launch of the Government’s inpatient bed capacity expansion plan at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, Mr Donnelly said that UHL “should have been seeing reductions now” in its trolley figures but that for “various reasons” the totals being seen have instead increased by about 40%.

This has resulted despite the “very significant” increase in capacity delivered to UHL in recent times in order to tackle its trolley figures, which has seen staffing levels at the hospital jump by 1,200 and the number of consultants in the emergency department increase by 50%.

“There are 29 emergency departments in the country, we probably spend 90% of our time talking about one of them and we rarely talk about the great progress being made in the other 28,” Mr Donnelly said.

UHL, which has been beset by harrowing patient stories owing to overcrowding, recorded 141 people on trolleys on Wednesday, a jump from the 110 seen the previous day.

The hospital has been consistently one of the worst-performing facilities with regard to trolleys in the country for several years.

The minister said that in terms of UHL, a reduction in its trolley numbers is 'not contingent on more capacity'.

“I am not satisfied with the situation at Limerick so we’re going to do further things,” the minister said, while citing actions taken to date to mitigate the problem including the provision of 108 additional beds and the stationing of a general practitioner at the door of the hospital.

He added however that in terms of UHL, a reduction in its trolley numbers is “not contingent on more capacity”.

“We’re putting in more capacity because we have to because the numbers continue to go up,” he said.

In addition to the 108 beds UHL has received to date, the hospital will be in receipt of a further 270 beds by 2031 under the newly-announced delivery plan.

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That plan will see an additional 3,352 beds added over the next six years, Mr Donnelly said, including 355 replacements, to be distributed across the HSE’s six new regional health areas.

Mr Donnelly said the plan “demonstrates our commitment to invest in hospital bed capacity and plan appropriately for the future”. 

He was unwilling to put a cost on the bed plan, saying it would leave the State as “hostages to fortune” in terms of what construction companies would charge to meet the plan’s expectations.

He insisted however that in return for the “huge additional investment” in terms of bed capacity “there must be an increase in the number of patients being seen”.

“If we do that we will in a fairly short number of years eradicate the patient waiting lists,” the minister said.