Meeting Called Over Mullingar Hospital Overcrowding

An emergency meeting has been called over the Midland Regional Hospital Mullingar being taken 'off-call'.

The hospital remains off-call as overcrowding in the Accident & Emergency Department reaches chronic levels. According to reports this morning, the A&E unit has been refusing patients from the ambulance service since lunchtime yesterday due to the overcrowding.

Consultants and senior clinicians at the hospital will meet the Health Service Executive today to urgently discuss the issue.

The HSE are expected to be asked to take emergency steps to provide additional beds. The hospital is open but a senior clinician has described conditions there this week as 'dangerous'.

Last night the HSE strongly denied claims that more than 40 beds had been left unused at the hospital due to recent cutbacks.

Responding to the news of the closure the Labour Party's spokesperson on Enterprise, Trade and Employment Willie Penrose the fact that the hospital was taken off call now means that people who need urgent treatment will have to be brought for their treatment to other hospitals in the region.

"This situation was all-too predictable and as recently as 12 November, during an adjournment debate in the Dail, I pointed out that in the light of the closure of 41 acute beds in Mullingar that this outcome was inevitable," he Mr Penrose said.

He added: "Unfortunately my predictions have proven to be correct, and as a result, people in Longford and Westmeath who need to be admitted to hospital will have nowhere local to go. This is outrageous and the HSE and this Government are treating the citizens of Longford-Westmeath as second-class citizens."

(DW/BMcc)