NURSES HAVE called on HSE management in the midwest to implement the region’s major disaster plan because of widespread overcrowding at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation yesterday said the hospital was unsafe, with “96 additional inpatients above the normal capacity of approximately 350 inpatient beds”. The union said the hospital was facing huge pressure and urged local GPs to attend the hospital to provide assistance.
It said in the hospital yesterday morning there were: 34 patients on trolleys in emergency (including three children), 12 admitted patients on beds in the medical assessment unit, 11 on beds in the surgical day ward, 25 on beds in Ward 1B where closed beds had reopened with skeleton staff, and 14 patients on extra beds/trolleys.
The union’s industrial relations officer, Mary Fogarty, said despite the Minister for Health’s assurances of improvements and recommendations for a special delivery unit, the situation at the hospital was deteriorating.
A HSE spokesman in Limerick said the hospital was facing pressures. He said the HSE had appealed to members of the public not to attend the hospital except in cases of genuine emergency.
