THE Friends of Ennis Hospital/Shannondoc group are planning a protest for Sunday, May 5, at 3pm.
The group also say that some 2,000 people have signed its petition, looking for full A&E services in Ennis to be restored.
Sunday’s protest is one of three planned across the region in the coming days, as public anger about the trolley crisis at University Hospital Limerick continues. “Our friends in Nenagh are arranging a protest on Friday, May 3, we will be sending representatives to Nenagh to lend our support. There is a protest planned for 1pm on Saturday, May 4 at City Hall, Limerick in relation to the ongoing crisis in UHL and we are sending a speaker to that meeting too.
“We have several speakers lined up for Sunday who have personal experience of the horrors of UHL’s emergency department. We will also be reading into the public record a list of the local election candidates who have refused to sign our candidate pledge as well as naming those who signed up to support our aims.”
While the organisers say the protest is not political, their statement also said, “We call on our TDs, our Minister for Health and our Taoiseach to make an unannounced visit to UHL to see first hand the chaos and conditions therein. To visit the hospital without it turning into a PR exercise with press photographers waiting on every word. To see the patients on trolleys in situ in the ED instead of being shoved on trolleys down corridors beside the morgue and other areas of the hospital where visitors rarely stray, thereby leaving patients out of sight and out of mind.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.