Mixed feelings in Clare about new hospital site in Limerick, TD says
Vivienne Clarke
Clare TD Cathal Crowe has expressed mixed feelings about the announcement on Tuesday by the Minister for Health for the development of a second hospital campus in Limerick for the midwest region.
The 44-acre site at Raheen, Co Limerick, which cost €14 million, will be one of the biggest hospital campuses nationally.
Crowe told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that “something more” was needed for the region.
People in Dublin had access to eight accident and emergency departments in their region; people in the Midwest had access to only one, he said.
The reconfiguration of hospitals in 2009 which led to the “winding back” of three accident and emergency departments in the Midwest, "fails the region," Crowe said.
"Ever since, we've been trying to acquire more accidents and emergency capacity, Minister Stephen Donnelly in the last Dáil, commissioned this famous Hiqa review, which was a real positive. That concluded a few months ago. And then yesterday we found out that there will be a site for a new hospital build. And that in itself is good.”
While the new hospital announced by the Minister on Tuesday would alleviate pressure on UHL, for many people in Clare, the fact was that 40 per cent of the county still lived more than an hour away from a hospital environment.
“We're the most peripheral parts of the country in terms of access to healthcare.
“There's a lot of people in West and North Clare bitterly disappointed that whilst there is a hospital, and that is good, that it won't be in our county and that it's still quite peripheral for what their needs would be.”
Crowe pointed out that for someone living in a village in West Clare, the new hospital site will, at a minimum with no traffic, be about one hour 34 minutes from the new hospital site. With traffic later in the day, it would be a two-hour journey.
“People who advocate for patients in our county would say, what is the golden hour?”
“There needs to be something major done now for Clare. The battle to deliver better healthcare in our county hasn't ended. It's only begun, if you ask me. And I think even simple things like better ambulance care and an air ambulance is going to be needed, but Ennis General Hospital can offer way, way, way more.
"We just can't be in this incessant situation where we're too far from access to emergency care.”
Crowe said that acquiring a new site was good, but the geographical imbalance could not be dismissed and “a huge amount more” needed to be done for Ennis.
