There’s been a 5% increase in the number of patients awaiting appointments at the region’s main hospital in the past year.
New figures released by the National Treatment Purchase Fund show 33,000 people are on waiting lists at University Hospital Limerick, a rise of over 1,500 on July last year.
Latest figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund show that across the entire UL Hospitals Group, there are 45,700 patients waiting on both inpatient and outpatient appointments.
That’s down almost 800 on a month ago and also marks an annual decrease of 676.
However, the news was not so positive for Clare’s local hospital facilities.
At the end of July 32,922 patients were awaiting appointments at University Hospital Limerick.
That’s up almost 5% on the numbers seen this time last year, when 31,387 were in the same boat.
The figure is made up of both inpatient and outpatient appointments – but despite the sizeable annual increase, it’s a drop of 710 in the past month.
Ennis General Hospital also experienced an annual increase of almost 100 but the 2,270 patients awaiting appointments there at the end of July is 63 less than in June.
With regards to long-term waits, there has been a significant rise of 31% in numbers waiting a year and a half or more at Limerick since this time last year.
While in Ennis, there were 124 patients waiting that long for an outpatient appointment, a rise of 19 in a year though no inpatient appointments were left facing an 18 month wait.
