638 admitted patients are waiting for beds in the nation’s hospitals today according to INMO Trolley Watch data. University Hospital Limerick reports 110 admitted patients on trolleys today – the highest in Ireland – the second highest total is 80 at Cork University Hospital. There are 10 patients on Trolleys in Tipperary University Hospital in Clonmel today.
Officials from the unions representing staff at St Conlon’s Nursing home in Nenagh and members of the INMO met with Sandra Broderick, the Regional Executive Officer of the HSE in the Mid West yesterday to discuss HSE plans to use the newly built Community Nursing Unit in Nenagh as a step down facility for UHL patients for a period of at least a year until additional beds come on stream in Limerick. Ms Broderick is understood to have said the plan is her idea and that she will carry out the plan despite union opposition.
The HSE is to hire a private company to run the facility in Nenagh. Patients and staff at St Conlon’s were to move into the new CNU in Nenagh which was completed in late 2023 at a cost estimated to be €23M as HIQA has found that the existing St Conlon’s building needs upgrading. It is understood that there are upwards of 60 people on a waiting list for Nursing home places in Nenagh.
