The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
CLARE patients who are being transported to the University Hospital Limerick (UHL) are being “shortchanged” due to the “unsafe” levels of overcrowding, a nursing union has claimed. SIPTU health division representative, Tony Kenny, also expressed concern about the increased risk infection being posed to patients, who were among the 47 waiting for treatment on trolleys on Monday morning in the emergency department. According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), the number of patients waiting to be admitted fell to 35 on Tuesday. The union is supporting calls from the INMO for the implementation of the Major Emergency Plan at UHL to bring about a level of control and safety at the emergency department. Mr Kenny claimed, at one stage, an ambulance was waiting about 20 minutes to transfer a patient from the vehicle into the emergency department because there was no spare trolley to accommodate them. Noting that the recent HIQA report outlined the emergency department was not …
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