Mum drives 200km to avoid taking son to overcrowded Limerick hospital 

Patients in the Mid-West are making the trip to Dublin rather than attending University Hospital Limerick, consistently the country’s most overcrowded hospital

Una Quish at home with son Noah in Castletroy, Limerick.

Collections of trolley beds line corridors, holding miserable patients as they wait to be seen by doctors and nurses who are burnt out — this is University Hospital Limerick (UHL) in 2022, consistently the most overcrowded hospital in the country.

The chaotic overcrowding is not a symptom of Covid-19. Old decisions made around healthcare in the region have come home to roost, with people across Limerick, Clare, and North Tipperary paying the price.