This article is from page 4 of the 2014-06-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
CLARE County Council is to write to Health Minister, James Reilly (FG), demanding that A&E services are reopened in Ennis until a new state of the art building is opened at the Limerick Regional Hospital.
This comes in the wake of a damning report of services at the Limerick facility by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) which described the Limerick A&E as “not fit for purpose”.
At last night’s meeting of Clare County Council, councillors voted unanimously to contact the Department of Health demanding both the temporary reopening of A&E services at Ennis General Hospital and the fast-tracking of funding for the promised state of the art A&E services at Limerick General Hospital.
Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG) also confirmed that local Fine Gael councillors held a meeting with TDs Pat Breen (FG) and Joe Carey (FG) yes- terday morning – and requested they secure a meeting with Minister Reilly and Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
It was also claimed at last night’s meeting that the Limerick A&E was “cleaned up” during a recent visit by Minister James Reilly, with 35 people on trolleys on the day before the meeting and only 10 during the meeting.
Last week’s HIQA review found serious delays and risks for patients and staff due to persistent overcrowding in A&E in Limerick.
It also found that there were delays in transferring patients from the Emergency Department to the Intensive Care Unit and the High Dependency Unit, partly due to the absence of a single clinical governance structure.
The report found that there was just one toilet in the Emergency Department for all patients, adults and children, and there were no single rooms to isolate patients with communicable diseases.
“The review also found that people in Clare were not using the minor injuries units in Ennis General Hospital.
In a statement to The Clare People