Hospital CEO warns ‘very tough’ winter lies ahead

BY DARA BRADLEY AND ENDA CUNNINGHAM

The head of public hospitals in the West of Ireland has conceded they are braced for a “very tough” winter.

Tony Canavan, Chief Executive officer of the Saolta University Healthcare Group – which operates University Hospital Galway, Merlin Park and Portiuncula among others – admitted there will be no extra beds this year in UHG.

Responding to concerns raised by Galway County Councillor Dáithí Ó Cualáin – a nurse in UHG and a member of the Regional Health Forum – Mr Canavan admitted there is a “big problem” in the hospital.

Cllr Ó Cualáin said he had never seen the situation so bad in UHG and the biggest concern for staff was what the winter would bring, when things were already at crisis point at the end of the summer.

Speaking on Raidió na Gaeltachta’s ‘Admhaidin’, he said: “Things are really bad at UHG at the moment. I’ve been working there for almost thirteen years, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it as bad.”

Cllr Ó Cualáin said that there were substantial staffing issues, but that the problems went deeper than that.

Mr Canavan later told the radio programme: “It’s accurate.  I agree with it … we have a big problem. [On Monday], we had 23 people in the hospital with Covid-19, four in ICU.  There was a large crowd attending A&E and also a large amount of people on trollies in A&E awaiting beds.

“From the start of the summer the numbers in A&E have been going up and up.  More people have attended A&E than in 2019.  If we have problems like that already in the autumn, certainly we will have much bigger problems in the winter, there’s no doubt about it.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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