Management at the State’s most overcrowded hospital say they are “sorely sorry” for the delays faced by patients in its emergency department.
But Prof Colette Cowan, chief executive of the University of Limerick Hospitals Group, said she did not believe failings in management were contributing to the problems faced by University Hospital Limerick.
Prof Cowan apologised for the distress and lack of dignity and privacy experienced by “far too many patients” seeking to access care in UHL.
“This is not the kind of care environment we wish to provide for the people of the midwest. It is not for want of effort on the part of the management team or commitment on the part of our staff,” she told the Oireachtas health committee on Wednesday.
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The meeting was convened to discuss last June’s highly critical report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) into UHL. It found the hospital’s “grossly overcrowded” ED was placing people at risk of harm, jeopardising care and compromising the dignity of patients.
Hiqa inspectors expressed “very significant concern” over what its inspectors witnessed during an unannounced inspection. One patient had been waiting on a trolley for more than five days, and two were on trolleys for three days.
“Hiqa was not satisfied that the hospital was adequately planning, organising and managing their nursing workforce in the emergency department to ensure high-quality, safe and reliable healthcare in the department,” the report said.
Prof Cowan said the hospital group was responding to the Hiqa report and a detailed compliance plan had been drawn up detailing actions to be taken.
However, she added it was important to acknowledge the factors behind the “extraordinary growth” in demand at UHL.
When hospital services were reconfigured in the midwest from 2009, a report recommended that UHL should have 642 inpatient beds. This did not happen.
“Today, our inpatient bed capacity is 530, far short of the recommendation and making no allowance for the increase in and rapid ageing of our population in the intervening 13 years.
“We remain far short of where we need to be. We are still playing catch-up. Until our undercapacity is addressed, we will not eliminate hospital overcrowding in Limerick.”
UHL has a shortfall for 87 beds, 68 non-consultant hospital doctors and 38 consultants, she told TDs.
“We are sorely sorry for patients having to wait in an ED,” Prof Cowan told Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane.
The midwest needs a new elective hospital for non-urgent patients, she said.
While Prof Cowan said action taken since the Hiqa report have reduced the number of patients waiting for a bed and on trolleys, Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell pointed out recent trolley numbers were higher than on the same days last year.
