PATIENTS in Cork University Hospital’s emergency department are facing waits of up to 19 hours with one woman telling The Echo she had packed an overnight bag amid anticipated delays.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, said staff in the CUH emergency medicine department were doing their utmost to raise the spirits of those waiting hours for treatment.

Linda (not her real name) described how frontline workers were distributing blankets and cups of tea for people waiting hours for treatment. After arriving in CUH at 5pm to seek treatment, the Cork woman said she had expected very long delays.

“I packed a bag knowing that I would probably be there overnight. The wait turned out to be 19 hours so I wasn’t out until the next day.” She praised the resilience of staff. 

“The conditions staff were being forced to work in were “third world”. Despite this, they never once showed any signs of stress and looked after everyone waiting as best they could. It’s disgraceful this is something they have had to get used to.”

She described the scenes in the emergency department. “I met people who were there even longer than me. I was in a place where there was very little stress in comparison to what must have been going on in the wards.”

Effy Murphy from Youghal, who was waiting on the same day with her daughter, said she had spent nine hours in the hospital with her daughter before she was seen.

“It was really crowded so I had to sit on the floor,” she said. There were a lot of elderly people and babies. The staff were fantastic.”

A total of 1,041 patients were on trolleys in the CUH in February which meant the Cork hospital recorded the second-highest number of patients on trolleys in the country that the month.

The hospital apologised for the long waiting times in a statement to The Echo. “Cork University Hospital cannot comment on individual cases,” a spokesperson said. 

“The hospital, however, wishes to apologise to all patients who continue to be affected by long waiting periods at the hospital’s emergency department.

“The hospital has a long-standing challenge with acute inpatient bed capacity on site. This unfortunately has resulted in a large number of patients having to endure lengthy waiting times in the emergency department awaiting admission. Staff work very hard to provide ongoing safe care to all patients who await admission. CUH is working with HSE colleagues regionally and nationally to address this.”