The UL Hospitals Group has closed its injury unit at Nenagh Hospital today due to a staffing shortage.
The hospital is asking patients not to attend today, except those who are in for review appointments, and to attend at Ennis and St John's Hospital units instead.
It is anticipated the unit at Nenagh, which normally operates from 8am to 8pm, will be open tomorrow.
The group is urging people not to attend the emergency department at University Hospital Limerick with minor injuries such as a sprain, fracture, wound or burn.
They have said the St John's Hospital injury unit in Limerick city and Ennis Hospital are the best option for these injuries and that patients will be treated in a fraction of the time they can expect to wait in the busy emergency department.
The daily Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation trolley watch list show that UHL is again the most crowded hospital with 82 patients waiting on trolleys, 36 of them in its emergency department.
Meanwhile, figures presented to the Mid West Regional Health forum today, which is attended by councillors from Donegal to Limerick show that attendances at the mid-west region’s injury clinics has grown considerably over the past year and that 2022 was their busiest year so far.
A total of 38,523 patients attended the injury units at Ennis, Nenagh and St John's last year, a 30% increase on 2021.
Figures also presented to the forum show that 79,891 patients attended the emergency department at UHL last year, 19% or 15,358 attended between the overnight hours of 8pm-8am Monday to Friday, and 6,51, or 8% , attended between those overnight hours at weekends on Saturday and Sunday nights.
