Health

University Hospital Limerick seeks to build 96-bed block

Hospital is also recruiting emergency department staff and patient flow coordinators to ease overcrowding

University Hospital Limerick: The number of nurses in the hospital’s emergency department has risen from 120 to 129, but there are currently six vacancies. Picture: Arthur Ellis

University Hospital Limerick (UHL) is seeking to build a new 96-bed patient block to alleviate its status as the most overcrowded hospital in the country. The hospital added 100 beds during the pandemic and began work on another block last October which will take two years to deliver.

Half of the 96 new beds will be replacements for those in large ‘Nightingale’ wards in the hospital, which carry a high infection risk for patients. “We ...