University Hospital Limerick

Outcomes is the key in terms of medical treatment.

I understand the issues but again I mean, we had a serious issue in terms of University Hospital Limerick itself.

Decisions have been made in terms of location of a new hospital.

And then there has to be wider consideration in terms of how services are configured in respect to the region more generally.

And if that was available at the weekends, then maybe there could be a number of people that could avoid going to UHL.

So we need to be looking in the meantime at what services can we put into Ennis to help reduce the pressure on University Hospital Limerick, to reduce the number of people from Clare that have to travel into George Oil, because, you know, the number is going into George Oil, the number is going into And any services that we can add on in Ennis to reduce that is good for everybody, but especially for the people in Clare.

Although the numbers provided by the HSE are lower, they too highlight particular problems in St Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin and in Cork, Galway and Sligo.

As usual, the hospital with by far the highest number of people waiting for admission was University Hospital Limerick.

According to the INMO, this level of emergency department overcrowding is a safety risk and hospitals with severe overcrowding should declare a major incident.

Doctors have also voiced concern.

So it is a complicated cycle this kind of time of the year.

They try and rein in hiring, but then agency staff are very expensive and we are seeing demand increase in our hospital system.

And as you mentioned there, University Hospital Limerick alone, I mean, has 117 patients on trolleys today.

it is by far the highest.

The number of people attending emergency departments increased by more than 7% in the last year, reaching around 1 million by the end of the summer.

The minister also criticised a number of hospitals, including St Vincent's, Cork University Hospital, Mayo, Letterkenny, Slago and University Hospital Limerick, for what she described as consistently poor trolley performance and inadequate explanations for the figures.

Eleanor Donaldson is seeking permission to appeal the ruling that found she carried out the acts relating to charges of aiding and abetting her husband, convicted paedophile Geoffrey Donaldson.

It comes as ministers in Stormont launch a review of the mechanism known as a trial of the facts carried out when the accused is deemed medically unfit to stand trial.

Funnily enough, we were talking in yesterday's show at Friends of Ennis Hospital and Angela called it, their chair was highlighting, any time we speak about it, about healthcare in the Midwest.

You know, we talk about the population of 400 plus thousand and having just University Hospital, Limerick, obviously, well, you know, the Zenith Hospital and St. John's and all that.

But in terms of having the most services, but obviously the pressures it's under, and Angela was pointing out how by 2030, which is not that far away, the population is expected to be around half a million.

So in situations like this, particularly for older members of the community, you may be concerned about And obviously, as you get older, you need to be more mindful of your health.

The new Midwest Health Planning Board has been tasked with tackling the region's growing health care pressures, including capacity at University Hospital Limerick and future hospital development at Raheen.

But Friends of Ennis Hospital says the focus must not be solely on Limerick and that Ennis needs investment in beds, theatres and services now, alongside a longer-term plan for an acute hospital in this county.

Joining me for more on this on the line is Angela Cole, of course, the chair of Friends of Ennis Hospital.

It occurred just before four o'clock on the day, and I understand the deceased toddler, who was named locally as two-year-old Peter Mulcair, had been out playing on a miniature tractor when he was struck and critically injured outside his home by this Jeep.

Gardaí said a relative brought the boy to University Hospital Limerick where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Now, Peter Mulcair had only started at a local preschool last week and his mother had shared photos online of him beaming from ear to ear on the morning of his first day at the school.

Gardaí said this Jeep involved in this hit and run incident obviously did not remain at the scene they said they said a male found driving the jeep afterwards at another location was arrested by Gardaí under suspicion of driving while intoxicated for the purposes of providing Gardaí with a blood or urine sample and the man aged in his 30s provided an evidential sample and was then released pending the results of that sample so the latest on that investigation in Rathkeel is that Gardaí are presently awaiting the results of the sample provided by the male motorist, which will include results of toxicology tests, which will either rule in or rule out the potential presence of any intoxicants.

Anyway, that's the background to the story.

Lo and behold... it's now turned out oh because the media reports on social media and in the general media it was reported that the incident had occurred because this family came forward clearly identifying themselves identified the name of the woman said it was our mother their mother had died I think last year sometime so it was obviously done in the weeks leading up to the mother's death and that's what you were led to believe and it happened while their mother was a patient at University Hospital Limerick well Obviously, University Hospital Limerick were very upset to be tagged in all these stories and to think that it was one of their health care workers had been so disrespectful to one of their patients.

So they obviously immediately undertook an investigation.

And it turns out they have now done their, conducted their investigation into the video.

And while they were doing their investigation, that didn't stop this video being widely circulated on social media.

It then got reported in a number of media, let's put local and national reports.

with everybody inferring that it was University Hospital Limerick and the name of this woman was also being mentioned.

But the investigation has confirmed that the video and the incident did not occur at University Hospital Limerick or at any HSE Midwest facility.