Almost half a billion euro paid out in compensation by hospital group over ten year period 

Almost half a billion euro in compensation claims has been paid out over a decade by the South/South West Hospital Group.

A total of €484,371,638 was paid out between 2013 and 2022 by the group, which is made up of six Cork hospitals and one each in Kerry, Tipperary, and Waterford.

The figures were provided to Aontú from National Incident Management System data, with data for 2023 and 2024 not yet available.

It comes as a previous parliamentary question by the party showed 1,460 compensation claims were made against the hospital group between 2014 and 2024 so far.

The new data shows €22,345,918 was paid out by the hospital group in 2013, €13,456,021 in 2014, €46,462,586 in 2015, and €22,945,353 in 2016.

In 2017, €50,193,173 was paid out in compensation claims, a further €38,039,738 was paid in 2018, €57,886,541 in 2019, 2020 saw €78,355,603 paid, while €114,645,751 was paid out in 2021 and €40,040,955 in 2022.

The combined figure of almost half a billion over the 10-year period is the highest of the seven hospital groups in Ireland.

It is more than four times higher than the group which paid out the lowest amount of compensation, Children’s Health Ireland, which paid out €109,882,016 between 2013 and 2022.

It is 50% more than the group that paid the next highest amount of compensation, Saolta University Health Care Group, which covers hospitals in the north west, which paid out €323,813,740 in the same period.

The State Claims Agency explained that it “does not release transaction data into the public domain at individual hospital level because to do so would effectively provide a league table of hospitals”.

That could cause the public to draw “false and unwarranted assumptions” in relation to the clinical performance of a particular hospital, they said.

Aontú general election candidate for Cork North-West, Becky Kealy, raised concerns about staffing levels exacerbating issues within the health service.

She suggested that if the money spent on compensation claims was available to the health service, it could have been spent on more staff, which could have helped them avoid having to pay out such huge amounts of compensation.

The Echo contacted South/South West Hospital Group for comment.