Cork patients 'have worse experience' than those in Dublin hospitals - Minister

Patients attending hospitals in Cork have a far worse experience than those in Dublin, the health minister has said, as she criticised the failure to get to grips with overcrowding in Munster.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill also suggested that patients offered transfers from large hospitals to smaller hospitals such as Mallow for stepdown care should be more willing to move.

Fixing overcrowding is a key priority this year, she said, as she singled out Cork and Kerry, as well as Galway and surrounds, for particular criticism.

This week has seen pressures surge due to the flu and freezing weather following a quieter than expected Christmas, a situation that Ms Carroll MacNeill acknowledged.

“I think it’s fair to say if you were to look at the admittance to discharge figures in Cork CUH, and Galway, I think it’s not good enough yet,” she said.

“I think if I were living in Cork, I would reasonably ask why can’t I have the predictability or the relative predictability that we achieve in the Mater or Beaumont or St James [in Dublin],” she said.

“I just think the people in Cork and Galway deserve the same experience, and we have to interrogate that as much as possible to make sure we achieve it. And I do believe we will achieve it.”

During the last year, all hospitals moved to a seven-day week. Other changes included using surge beds on day wards instead of trolleys.

So far, this has helped avoid the shocking overcrowding of January three years ago.

However, despite some progress, Cork and Galway are lagging behind, she said.

Ms Carroll MacNeill said: “Cork and Galway are further behind on this journey of process change, but to be very fair, they have certainly come a distance.”

STEPDOWN CARE

She raised concerns about stepdown care in some regions.

Mallow Hospital runs a transfer from the Cork University Hospital (CUH) programme.

This saw 705 patients transferred in the first 10 months of 2024, a project update stated.

Ms Carroll MacNeill indicated that this needs to be expanded, saying: “There are empty beds in Mallow consistently”.

“If somebody is in an acute hospital and they no longer need acute care, and somebody else needs acute care, then they do need to move.

“People have to move out of acute hospitals to care that is appropriate for them; they do that in other regions.”

HSE Southwest did not wish to comment.