{"id":340895,"date":"2026-03-11T17:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/340895\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T17:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:18:15","slug":"over-40-in-clare-will-be-hour-from-new-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/340895\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 40% in Clare will be hour from new hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fianna F\u00e1il TD Cathal Crowe has expressed disappointment that the site of a new hospital facility in the midwest will be in Limerick, leaving people living in parts of Clare more than an hour away from emergency care.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after yesterday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/munster\/2026\/0310\/1562588-limerick-hospital-site\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill confirmed the acquisition of the 44-acre site in Raheen, which is 2km from UHL, which will be turned into a new hospital.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The new hospital campus will be built on the site to relieve pressure on UHL in Dooradoyle and it will be one of the largest hospital campuses in the country.<\/p>\n<p>The Minister said the &#8220;really important strategic site&#8221; is a 28-minute drive from Ennis, Co Clare and a 28-minute drive from Nenagh, Co Tipperary.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on RT\u00c9&#8217;s Morning Ireland, the Clare TD said the site being located close to University Hospital Limerick will help to alleviate pressure on UHL but added that &#8220;something major has to be done for Clare&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It alleviates pressure from UHL, don&#8217;t get me wrong, but for many people in Clare, the fact is that more than 40% of our county still find themselves living well more than an hour away from this hospital environment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So, we&#8217;re the most peripheral part of the country in terms of access to healthcare. I suppose that&#8217;s where the mixed feelings lie,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cathal Crowe TD\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0013a8d8-614.jpg\"\/><br \/>\nCathal Crowe called for more services to be added to Ennis Hospital (file image)<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Crowe added: &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of people in west and north Clare bitterly disappointed that while there is a hospital and that is good, that it won&#8217;t be in our county and that it&#8217;s still quite peripheral for what their needs would be.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He called for an expansion of the services offered by Ennis Hospital to help address the needs of people in the county.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My real ask to the Minister, and I know there was big news yesterday and it&#8217;s a multi-million-euro investment in the region, but I do think there needs to be something major done now for Clare.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The battle to deliver better healthcare in our county hasn&#8217;t ended,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Crowe added: &#8220;It&#8217;s only begun if you ask me and I think even simple things like better ambulance care and an air ambulance is going to be needed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But Ennis General Hospital can offer way, way, way more and we just can&#8217;t be in this incessant situation where we&#8217;re too far from accidents and emergency care.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il TD Cathal Crowe has expressed disappointment that the site of a new hospital facility in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-340895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}