Tag Archives: Health Minister Stephen Donnelly

ENGAGING in industrial action at the region’s main emergency care facility is “ill-advised” and a step too far, a local doctor has warned. INMO members at UHL commenced a ballot for industrial action on Wednesday over the alleged refusal of hospital management to attend talks at the Workplace Relations Commission. The INMO represents over 1,000 nurses on site who are frustrated at the approach to date by management to resolving the persistent high nurse vacancy rates and other related issues. Among nurses’ concerns are the risks to patients, overcrowding in a COVID-19 environment and excessive workloads arising due to unfilled funded nursing posts in wards, emergency department and theatres. Dr Michael Harty has called on Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to immediately intervene to prevent any threatened withdrawal of labour at University Hospital Limerick (UHL). “Minister Donnelly needs to take the understaffing issue very seriously. He was very strong on this issue when he was opposition spokesman on health. “I can …

OVERCROWDING in University Hospital Limerick now seems inevitable due to new Covid-19 restrictions, a local doctor has warned. The number of patients on trolleys in UHL reached 54 on Thursday, July 2 and Monday, July 6 which was the highest figure for any hospital in the country, according to figures produced by the INMO trolley watch. While the number of patients without beds dropped slightly to 48 on Tuesday, July 7 this was more than double the next highest hospital University College Hospital, Cork, which had 20 and contrasted sharply with Nenagh, Ennis and University Hospital Galway, which had no patients on trolleys. Dr Michael Harty pointed out that while UHL operated at 110% capacity in previous years he could now only run at 80% due to new Covid-19 measures such as social distancing and infection control. “Trolleys will be inevitable. Unless new models of practice are used, we will be back to levels experienced last winter before this year’s …