Plan for step-down beds at UHL off due to lack of funding

Plans to secure 100 step-down or rehab beds to ease pressure on the consistently overcrowded University Hospital Limerick were scrapped due to a lack of available HSE funding.

Last March, the HSE tender was advertised for the provision of the beds in the midwest region, however it was then withdrawn without explanation.

Meanwhile, sixty beds at a step-down bed facility located a mere 1.8km from UHL, continue to lay idle.

Bartra Healthcare said it has attempted to engage with the HSE to secure a contract to provide 60-80 step down beds at its Raheen Lodge facility, located at Mungret.

Bartra said it would also provide its own ambulance patient transfers, so that HSE NAS ambulances would not have to provide transport for transferring patients out of the acute hospital system to Raheen Lodge.

The facility was opened in May after costing €20 million to construct.

The capacity crisis, coupled with a lack of HSE step down facilities, has resulted in patients remaining in acute hospital beds for longer.

The lack of capacity has heaped pressure onto UHL's Emergency Department, resulting in patients waiting for long periods on trolleys in corridors.

Limerick Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan queried the tender cancellation with the HSE, in a parliamentary question, late last month.

Responding on 3 November, Ian Carter, the chief executive of the HSE Mid-West Acute and Older People Services said: "The procurement process for the Provision of Community Rehabilitation and Transitional Beds for HSE Mid-West, published in March 2026, was withdrawn due to the absence of an available funding allocation to support the commissioning of the required capacity."

"The decision reflected the prevailing financial position and the requirement to operate within available funding."

"The clinical and operational need for these beds remains, as they would provide valuable rehabilitation and transitional capacity and help alleviate overcrowding pressures in acute hospitals across HSE Mid-West."

Mr Carter said HSE Mid-West has "continued to seek funding through several channels to progress the local procurement of these beds".

"In parallel, the national HSE has undertaken a procurement process for the provision of similar beds, and HSE Mid-West is awaiting confirmation of whether capacity will be allocated to the region through that process," he said.

When asked for his reaction to the HSE’s response to his enquiry, Deputy Quinlivan said: "This comes as no surprise to me, and it illustrates the decades of underfunding in the midwest health service."

"The government is always telling me they are doing all they can to relive the pressures at UHL and this (HSE) letter clearly demonstrates that the opposite is true."

"If the government was serious about easing pressure on the most overcrowded hospital in the country, they would be using every available resource to make sure beds are freed up in the hospital in a timely fashion," said Deputy Quinlivan.

"People are in the hospital when they could be in a more appropriate setting and that bed could be used by someone else who needs it."

"It’s an absolute letdown to the people in the midwest region who have been promised lots over the years but hasn’t been delivered — and that HSE letter is crystal clear as to how we have been abandoned by the government."

In the first eight months of this year, an average of 38 acute beds in the midwest, 28 at UHL, were occupied everyday by patients medically approved for care elsewhere, with this number reaching a peak of 66, on 14 August.

The HSE Mid-West stated on 11 November that "more than 2,375 additional patients have required admission year-to-date compared with the same period last year" at University Hospital Limerick.

It described how the "ability" of hospitals, including UHL, to accommodate new patients has been "reduced significantly" and "further compounded by rising demand for hospital services".

It said this is "a matter of deep regret for all of us in the (region)" and that its hospitals are working to an "unprecedented levels of demand".

It called for further "immediate interventions and substantial long-term investment in acute hospital capacity" to help tackle the crisis.

HSE Mid-West said additional funding was recently "approved to secure 34 short-stay beds across the midwest region", however, it warned, "these additional beds will not, on their own, resolve overcrowding or eliminate trolley waits".

HIQA and the ESRI have said the region requires hundreds of additional acute beds.

Since last March, the privately operated Bon Secours Hospital, Limerick, has provided the HSE with overflow capacity for up to 15 patients during periods of peak demand at UHL.

Nine months ago, the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, announced the government purchased a €14million 44-acre greenfield site to develop another hospital in Limerick, however, as of yet, no timelines or costings on the proposed development have been announced.