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A CANDLE-LIT VIGIL, remembering patients who have died having languished on trolleys in the persistently-overcrowded University Hospital Limerick, is to take place outside the entrance of the hospital next Sunday.
The Mid-West Hospital Campaign (MWHC) group, which has called for the reopening of 24-hour accident and emergency units in Clare, north Tipperary and Limerick city and county, announced the vigil.
It has released a statement after the HSE apologised to the family of Aoife Johnston (16), from Shannon, Co Clare, 16-year old girl who died of sepsis and meningitis having languished for 12 hours on a trolley at UHL.
A damning UHL internal review which was provided to Aoife’s family in recent days, found “serious failings” in her care at UHL prior to her death there on December 19 last.
The report found Aoife waited 12 hours in UHL’s severely overcrowded emergency department and was not treated for sepsis until it was too late.
The review also found that delays in her treatment breached national guidelines on sepsis management.
A number of patients have died at the hospital over the years against the backdrop of overcrowding in the Limerick hospital, which has the only 24-hour Emergency Department for a catchment of 400,000.
In 2009, 24-hour A&E units in Clare, Nenagh, and St John’s, Limerick, were reconfigured to UHL.
The MWHC group stated: “We cannot allow this to keep happening.”
It said its vigil would take place outside the entrance gates of UHL at 2pm, Sunday 17th December.
“This vigil is to remember the thousands who have spent time in the Emergency Department lying on trolleys, sitting on chairs in an overcrowded and dysfunctional Emergency Department,” it said.
The group said it and others had grown increasingly concerned at health provision in the mid west region.
It said that, despite political promises to mitigate the trolley crisis at UHL, “the numbers on trolleys have increased throughout the year”.
“Political parties both in Government and Opposition have not and will not commit to reopening our Emergency Departments as evidenced by their own words in the media, at committee meetings including the recent appearance of this Campaign at the Petitions and Ombudsman Committee,” it said.
“They have chosen instead to stand with the medical experts, HSE and the management at UHL which has failed our communities time and time again.”
“This week the Johnston family from Shannon have finally got the UHL report on the death of their daughter in UHL on 19th December 2022.
“The report was delivered just prior to Aoife’s 1st anniversary despite the family being promised it would be available within 3 months.
“We cannot allow this to keep happening. All are welcome to attend [the vigil] on Sunday. Bring your candles, torches etc.”
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How is a country ranked top 10 yet has a third world health service where people are being left to die on trolleys. Let this travesty burn into the wretched souls of our elected TD’s.
RIP to all.
No surprise, except that the numbers of people neglected are far greater.
2 years ago, disabled father with stage 4 cancer was taken to CUH A&E in severe pain and waited 12 hours in a hard plastic chair before being seen. A month prior, we were 14 hours before he got a bed.
A couple of months ago, mother with dementia and a fall risk was moved by taxi, with no nurse escorting her, from CUH to a hospital across the city. She presented with a-fib, which hadn’t been got under control in CUH, yet in the wisdom of the doctor, she was fit enough to be moved. What about the 100′s of other patients in there, were they all worse than her?
What if she got a heart attack in the taxi? What if the taxi driver molested her? Who was tracking her progress?
@Paul M:
Had I not seen these with my own eyes, I would not believe that a caring profession could be less caring.
Don’t grow old, don’t get sick, don’t put your lives in the hands of these people.
I wonder will any Government T.Ds be there ?
Wille loves a good Vigil, doesn’t he ?
All those funerals he attends surely he loves a Vigil?
So sad for all those affected. I know of patients who have said they would rather die at home then face the horrific queues to get through the ED. These are people who often have already suffered enough and just can’t take it anymore. The awful thing is there is no will or political pressure to change this. The health staff are trying but are often burnt out by years of trying their best, substandard working conditions
As government and as a country. We should bow our heads in shame. We are commerating patients who went into hospital to be cured. And died waiting to be cured. What a scandal. And we as a civil society tolerate it. . Im not sure who is worse minster or us. And the worst is people on trolleys over 700 today. Shame on all there houses. Rip to all who this minster has hastened there death.
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