‘Bean counters’ in HSE blamed for Limerick A&E crisis

Quinlivan: 'Bean counters' to blame

“BEAN COUNTERS” in the Health Service Executive have been blamed by Limerick City Councillor Maurice Quinlivan for calls by the HSE for the public to try and avoid Limerick Regional Hospital A&E because it is over-stretched after the closure of A&E units in Nenagh and Ennis.

The INMO nurses’ and midwives’ union has called for health safety body HIQA to carry out an urgent review of services at Limerick Regional Hospital following reports of severe overcrowding there.

Focusing on the A&E situation, Sinn Féin Councillor Maurice Quinlivan said:

Various public representatives, patients’ advocacy groups and trade unions consistently pointed out that this would prove disastrous for patient care and staff conditions as it was obvious that an already under-pressure A&E department in the Regional would not be able to cope and ran the risk of being overwhelmed.

The HSE chose instead to listen to discredited consultants and accountants. Once again, budgetary and administrative issues have won out over considerations of public health and patient care.

What is happening at Limerick Regional Hospital is a disgrace. Instead of a much-heralded centre of excellence it is turning into a basket case of a hospital – a byword for over-crowding, overstretched services, poor hygiene, MRSA and general chaos.

The excellent and overworked staff at the hospital are being put in an impossible position. Their concerns have been ignored by the bean counters in HSE management.

Maurice Quinlivan added that experience shows that the hospital strategy and policies being pursued by this Government through the HSE are an abject failure and have been for years. Hospitals are unable to carry out what is their basic and primary duty to the public, he said.

The Government have created a situation whereby perfectly good and efficient hospital services are downgraded or closed while the Regional is effectively turning people away because it can’t cope with the new demands and pressures foisted upon it. This is surely something that defies all rational understanding.

Sinn Féin believes the Government and the HSE must reverse their insane hospital policies before even further irreparable damage is caused to our public health service.

As far as the Mid-West is concerned, it is clear that full A&E services have to be restored to Nenagh, Ennis and St John’s to take the pressure off the Regional.

This nonsense has gone too far.