UHL now renting floor space in Bon Secours Limerick to alleviate pressure

Bon Secours Limerick has reached an agreement with UHL.

University Hospital Limerick has started renting floor space at Bon Secours Limerick to alleviate periods of peak pressure.

The two hospitals have been in discussions with HSE Mid-West in a bid to ease pressure on UHL during peak periods and Bon Secours Limerick chief executive Jason Kenny confirmed to the Irish Examiner that UHL had started to rent floor spaces.

“I’m delighted to announce we've reached a service level agreement with University Hospital Limerick. About three weeks ago, we took our first patients. These would be primarily medical patients who have had their initial acute intervention taken care of by UHL in the right setting.

“When they're stabilised, they then would reach a certain triage and be fit for transfer to a dedicated ward,” Mr Kenny said.

As of this Monday morning, Mr Kenny said 13 patients transferred from UHL were being treated in Bon Secours.

The official opening of Bon Secours Limerick, Ireland’s first new acute hospital in almost 20 years, took place on Monday, after a €213m investment.

Bon Secours Limerick is now the only hospital in the Mid-West with a PET scanner, which delivers imaging test that uses radioactive material to diagnose, monitor and treat a variety of conditions. PET scanners are used to locate tumours, and are also used to diagnose heart disease and brain disorders.

Clinical director and consultant anaesthetist Dr Siobhan Grimes said people in the Mid-West can now get a scan in Limerick — instead of travelling to Dublin and Cork.

“One of the reasons for building this hospital is to stop that migration of people having to go down the road to get the services that we can provide here.

“The potential with PET scanning is huge — it’s used for staging in oncology, but it's also used for other things. Neurology, particularly, being one of the major specialties using the PET scanner,” she said.

Dr Grimes added: “It’s open and we've had the first few patients through and all went well. It's a big investment and a big undertaking.” 

Local TD and communications minister Patrick O’Donovan was also at the launch of Bon Secours Limerick.

 ”It represents a €200m investment into healthcare here in the Mid-West, it’s the first private hospital of scale here in the region, and it'll really add significantly to the healthcare needs and healthcare delivery,” Mr O’Donovan said.

This comes as a decision is due to be made on a site for a multi-million euro project, which will seek to deliver a new UHL hospital facility.

The HSE Mid-West was contacted for comment.