More than 84,000 people waiting for treatment in Cork hospitals last month

More than 84,000 people were on waiting lists across hospitals in Cork last month, with in excess of 1,000 patients treated without a bed.

The figures, published by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, show that 84,063 patients were waiting for treatment in Cork at the end of May, of which 74,828 were outpatients and 9,235 were inpatients.

This represents an almost 5% increase on the number of patients waiting for care at the end of the same month last year, and a slight increase on the more than 83,000 people waiting to be treated at the end of April.

The majority of people, almost 40,000, were waiting to be seen at South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, followed by 27,800 at Cork University Hospital (CUH), and more than 7,350 at Mercy University Hospital.

Among those awaiting treatment were 9,480 children.

Treated without a bed

According to additional data from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, during the month of May, there were 1,085 people treated without a bed in Cork across CUH, the Mercy, and Bantry.

Nationally, there were almost 785,000 people waiting for care across Irish hospitals at the end of last month, of which more than 82,000 were children, and more than 9,800 were treated without a bed.

Speaking to The Echo, Fine Gael Cork North Central TD Colm Burke said: “We don’t have a problem with staff, our problem is getting people seen in a timely manner.”

“The big challenge we have is step-down facilities.

“We have opened additional beds in Blarney, but it’s about getting people through the hospitals and making sure we have adequate step-down services.

“At any time there is a waiting list, no matter what it’s for, you’d be worried.

“There is a lot of progress being made, but we need to roll out [step-down facilities] nationally. We have increased the number of medical consultants, but they need space. I think it’s important that we work on this issue.

“If you look at any one of our hospitals, they are at capacity, and that is always dangerous.”

Social Democrats Cork South-Central TD Pádraig Rice, party spokesperson on health, said these numbers are “deeply concerning, but the bigger concern is the waiting times”.

Nowhere close to being met 

“Sláintecare set out core wait times of 10 weeks for outpatients and 12 weeks for inpatients and day cases, but these are nowhere close to being met,” said Mr Rice. “We urgently need for these targets to be set down in law.

“We also need to address the understaffing of our hospitals and primary care services by scrapping arbitrary recruitment caps.

“Safe staffing should be the guiding benchmark in terms of recruitment for our staff.”