Dan Neville (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the overcrowding at accident and emergency departments. I want to refer in particular to the serious overcrowding in the emergency department at University Hospital Limerick, where serious difficulties have arisen. There is a facility to admit 17 patients through the accident and emergency department, but as many as 40 patients awaited admission last week. Extra resources are urgently needed, and I will discuss how the situation developed. The issue is one of capacity, rather than discharge. The capacity is not available in accident and emergency to deal with the number of patients now presenting there.

There is concern that the wards into which people are being moved from accident and emergency on an urgent basis because of overcrowding do not have the necessary apparatus. They are not designed for the issues that have arisen in terms of the difficulties patients are experiencing.

There is a new accident and emergency department being built with 35 beds, and there are 17 beds at the moment. It has been recognised that there is a need for 35 beds. Unfortunately, they will not come into operation until early 2016 at the earliest, so there is an urgent need with regard to ensuring resources and staff can be applied to the current accident and emergency department.

How did this arise? We have known for some time that there was a lack of planning. When the reconfiguration process occurred, 18 beds were removed from Nenagh, Ennis and St. John's Hospital at Limerick to the University of Limerick hospital but there were no facilities to respond to this. If work is being doubled for an organisation, resources must be applied to respond to it.

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