HSE Midwest is urging patients to consider all care options before presenting at University Hospital Limerick.<\/p>\n
It comes amid a surge of demand for services at the region\u2019s main hospital with a \u2018significant number\u2019 of patients currently waiting on trolleys.<\/p>\n
Patients are encouraged, where possible, to contact out of hours GP services and injury units as those with less urgent injuries and illnesses are likely to face \u2018substantial waiting times\u2019.<\/p>\n
In a statement to Clare FM, HSE Midwest apologises to \u2018every patient who is currently facing an unacceptably long waiting time for a bed\u2019 and says \u2018staff are doing everything possible to provide the best possible care\u2019.<\/p>\n
Full statement from HSE Midwest:<\/p>\n
University Hospital Limerick (UHL) is currently experiencing exceptionally high demand with a significant number of admitted patients being accommodated on trolleys.<\/p>\n
We are urging patients and service users to use all available alternative services where possible. Injury Units and Out-of-Hours GP services are fully operational and can provide care for non-life-threatening conditions.<\/p>\n
The Emergency Department at UHL is open 24-7 for patients with life-threatening emergencies however patients with less urgent injuries or illnesses are likely to wait substantial waiting times.<\/p>\n
We thank the public for their patience at this time of exceptionally high demand for hospital services, and ask them to continue supporting us in ensuring emergency care is prioritised for the sickest, most seriously injured and frailest patients.<\/p>\n
Our Injury Units are open 8am to 8pm at Ennis, Nenagh and St John\u2019s hospitals with overall patient experience times averaging less than two hours.<\/p>\n
Surge capacity is open across our hospital sites and additional staff are rostered at weekends to increase discharges.<\/p>\n
We apologise to every patient who is currently facing an unacceptably long waiting time for a bed and our staff are doing everything possible to provide the best possible care while they do wait.<\/p>\n
We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and sincerely thank all hospital staff for their professionalism, dedication, and compassionate care during this period of exceptional activity.<\/p>\n
We continue to monitor the situation closely and will provide further updates as necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HSE Midwest is urging patients to consider all care options before presenting at University Hospital Limerick. It comes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-70739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70739","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=70739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}