Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was interested to hear the Minister’s comments on Waterford hospital. I wish everybody who uses that hospital all the best. The Minister praised the management team there. I wish I could say the same for my hospital, University Hospital Limerick. I have been talking about it probably on a weekly basis since I was elected in 2016 with different health Ministers through Topical Issues, priority questions, Questions on Promised Legislation, committees or anywhere I could raise the issue.

One figure I want to give the Minister, to repeat and to repeat repeatedly is that this year so far, 16,904 people have waited in trolleys in Limerick. That is a scandal. There is no other trolley count anywhere close to these figures There is no plan to get us out of it. We will build a 96-bed unit which the Minister and the HSE have confirmed to me will deliver 48 additional beds. They will not solve the problems and they will not come for a number of years.

I have had difficulties with the management at the hospital in the past. I do not believe they are up to the task. I have said it on numerous occasions. I have said it to them at meetings and have said it in here. We hear Waterford has good management structure and it seems to have an impact. Limerick has a major issue with capacity and the amount of people. A total of 76,470 people attended in 2021. Today, we reached the shocking figure of 16,904 people on trolleys. I will keep raising this number because it is not just a number. These are people. Sometimes they are close family members or neighbours of mine. They are older people and younger people. The concern I have is one that nurses told me well before the current Minister for Health took office. Nurses have told me to that older people are dying unnecessarily in our hospital all the time because they are lingering on trolleys for way too long.

Older people are dying unnecessarily in our hospitals all the time because they are lingering on trolleys for way too long. Something has to be done. There has to be some sort of a critical emergency intervention. We have had a HIQA report, the Deloitte report and a huge number of other reports. We hear that plans will be made, but that is of no comfort to people. There is not a single day that I do not get phone calls from families in utter distress. These include elderly patients especially and children who are waiting in University Hospital Limerick. These are particularly older people who are abandoned in our hospital, and it is simply not good enough. The Minister will remember the 16,904 people

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