Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Fine Gael group for tabling this. A lot of what I will cover has come from party colleagues of mine in Limerick or people I know in Limerick who have contacted me to discuss some of the issues they are concerned about. I also have correspondence from a student who got in touch. I ask the House to bear with me as I jump from one device to the other because the people contacted me in different ways.

My colleague, Councillor Conor Sheehan, who is a Limerick city north representative, outlined to me why UHL is 50% more overcrowded than every other acute hospital. I spoke about this last week so I am sorry if we go over a similar topic again. Councillor Sheehan said he believes that this is primarily a matter of resourcing and that the hospital is underfunded and understaffed, with fewer beds per capitathan the six other acute hospital groups. He said this has been highlighted over a number of years by many Members of both the Upper and the Lower Houses. My party colleague Deputy Alan Kelly has spent years talking about Nenagh, St. John's and Ennis hospitals and the impact this would have, and we are seeing the result of the closure of all these facilities now. There are figures suggesting UHL is possibly 50% more overcrowded than other hospitals. Many of us would probably agree that when St. John's Hospital, Nenagh General Hospital and Ennis Hospital were downgraded, UHL never got its fair share of resources to create the centre of excellence that was promised. That was demonstrated by Dr. Gerry Burke, who was the clinical director. I believe he met with all Oireachtas Members based in the mid-west in, I think, 2019. His research shows that five of the hospital groups had 25% more hospital doctors, 27% more consultants, 50% more health and social care professionals and 7% more nurses and midwives than UL Hospital Group and that ULHG needed 130 more doctors, 120 nurses and 200 health and social care staff to bring it up to the same level as the five other hospital groups. I know some work has been done since that meeting.