Limerick voters angry at overwhelmed hospital as 'only one issue' dominates as candidates hit the doors

“There is only one issue in Limerick, and unless you live under a rock you will know. It’s that big building out there called UHL, if it was in Dublin, it would be fixed.”

These are the words of passionate Limerick City local, Kevin O’Grady. On a bitterly cold Thursday morning in Rhebogue, he answers the door to Social Democrat Councillor and General Election hopeful Elisa O’Donovan.

In 2009, the A&E units at Ennis and Nenagh General Hospitals were closed. Since then, despite a growing population, the Mid-West region has access to only one emergency department at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

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It serves about 400,000 people and is consistently the most overcrowded hospital in the country. Voters will take to the polls next week, and it’s apparent that Limerick’s health system crisis is the number one issue for locals.

After two hours of canvassing in the Meadows, Dromroe and Drominbeg estates in Rhebogue, almost every person who answers the door brings it up. Locals are terrified of getting sick and will avoid UHL at all costs.

Mr O’Grady has recently retired from the army but says he has to pay out of pocket for his family’s healthcare. He added: “My wife suffers from lupus, she is perfect and she is grand but everything we do is private. It’s all cash or card, I don’t care. You only have one other option, and I wouldn’t sit in [UHL] for three days.”

Mary Molone speaking to Catherine Murphy and Cllr Elisa O'Donovan, Social Democrats on the General Election Campaign Trail

Opting for private healthcare in the city isn’t uncommon as locals fear being left to die waiting in the A&E. In 2022, 16-year-old Aoife Johnston died from meningitis after she was left for more than 13 hours without antibiotics.

An investigation into her death found that it was “almost certainly avoidable”. One voter at the doors in Limerick City, who didn’t wish to be named, waited half a day on a chair in the emergency department when she was having a suspected heart attack.

Others are being told by doctors to go private for procedures, as waitlists are so long. Local Mary Malone told the Irish Mirror: “My own doctor referred me for a tube down my throat and the hospital rang me yesterday to know if I’d be interested in going privately, that it wouldn’t be that dear.

"I am paying into that system, I should be entitled to go on the waitlist.” As we finished up canvassing, two small cocker spaniels ran up to Social Democrats co-founder and TD since 2005, Catherine Murphy, who joined us on the trail.

Lindsey Liston speaking to Catherine Murphy and Cllr Elisa O'Donovan, Social Democrats on the General Election Campaign Trail

The pups' owner, Lyndsey Liston, immediately brought up UHL. She said: “I wouldn’t go in there at all, I would be very reluctant. I brought my father there and he stayed there for 20 minutes and walked out the door, he said staying there would make him more sick.

“The hospital wasn’t even busy and no one was coming. It has been dealing with a reputation issue for a long time and those [high profile] cases probably tipped it over the edge. There is local knowledge that these [deaths] could have been avoided as these are long-standing issues.”

In 2019, 21-year-old Eve Cleary died just over three hours after she was discharged from UHL and told to go home and rest. On July 21, she went to the hospital’s emergency department after she fell and hurt her leg.

The young woman spent 17 hours on a trolley in a corridor before being briefly admitted to a ward before being discharged. The cause of her death was a blood clot in her lung. In January of this year, Eve’s family settled a High Court action. While the HSE and hospital expressed "sincere condolences and deep regret", the court heard the settlement is without an admission of liability.

Since the 21-year-old's death, her mother Melanie Cleary has been working as an activist but says nothing is being done. That is why she is taking matters into her own hands and is running for the Dáil as part of the Mid-West Hospital campaign.

Her main aim is to reopen the A&Es in Nenagh and Ennis. We sit down for a coffee in Corbally before the General Election hopeful hits the doors, and it’s apparent that she’s a woman on a mission.

Melanie Cleary on the General Election Campaign Trail

Ms Cleary said: “When I said I was running as a candidate some have said I’m a one-trick pony, but Limerick needs a TD to address this. Every TD we went to after Eve died, we were left completely on our own. If you want to make a system better, then you speak to victims and listen to the families that have experienced it. There are so many people out there like my family.

"In a way, we were blessed because the media was concerned because Eve was so young but there are people's mothers, brothers, and sisters who died horrendously and no one is talking about them. It’s something that needs to be tackled since yesterday.”

The heartbroken mother of six has been left so traumatised by her daughter's experience in UHL that she wouldn’t dare admit herself there. She added: “I wouldn’t go there, I told my family if I am sick, leave me at home, I won’t go there.

"For me, what was done to Eve was very, very unfair, she was not treated and didn’t get any healthcare. She was given paracetamol, an X-ray and a scan and told to go home and rest.

"She had the symptoms of a blood clot, she was on the contraceptive pill, had a family history of blood clots, and wasn’t listened to." Ms Cleary will be contesting against 16 other candidates, including Social Democrat Elisa O’Donovan, for four seats in Limerick City.

A councillor for Limerick City West for the past five years, Ms O’Donovan is also a speech and language therapist and says she knows first-hand the issues the health system is facing. She said: “It has gotten to a crisis point. We need a level three hospital, we need that acute space for people to access because we have 390,000 people accessing one A&E, and the capacity isn’t there.

“When the A&Es were closed in 2009 by Fianna Fáil it was only if there was capacity in UHL and there wasn’t, so they shouldn’t have been closed at that stage. The main reason I joined the Social Democrats as a healthcare worker is we are the only party with a fully formed accosted plan that all the other parties have signed onto, sláintecare.”

While the people of Limerick are screaming for another public hospital a week before they hit the polls, a “state-of-the-art” private hospital is scheduled to open in Ballysimon next year. Locals are terrified that this will exacerbate an already overwhelmed UHL as staff will likely jump ship for better working conditions and pay.

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