University Hospital Limerick is reporting 50 patients on trolleys today.
The figure, which includes 32 patients in the recently opened Emergency Department, is 15 higher than any other hospital in Ireland, according to the INMO’s Daily Trolleywatch statistics.
Galway University Hospital is the second busiest, with 35 people waiting to be admitted.
In all, 409 patients are on trolleys in EDs and on wards throughout Ireland today.
Meanwhile, calls have been made for drastic action to be taken to tackle out of control waiting lists at the region’s hospitals.
The latest figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund show the number of people waiting a considerable length of time to be seen at hospitals in the Midwest is continuing to grow.
Clare FM’s Fiona McGarry reports:
Since the start of the year, the number of patients waiting at least 18 months for both inpatient and outpatient appointments at Ennis General AND University Hospital Limerick has increased.
At Ennis, 58 patients waiting for a urology inpatient appointment find themselves in that situation – that’s up from 9 at the start of the year.
while the numbers waiting a year-and-a-half for an outpatient appointment have increased to 105 in July, from 92 in January.
University Hospital Limerick reports a huge increase in the number of people waiting that long for an outpatient appointment there – in the six months from January, that number has jumped by 82% to over 3,500.
The numbers waiting a long time to be seen as inpatients there has more than doubled from 64 to 160.
They’re among 700,000 people currently waiting on treatment in a public hospitals in this country.
President of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, Tom Ryan says drastic action is needed.
Aaron Daly’s 12 year old daughter Sophia has returned to the waiting list for scoliosis treatment.
She had her first operation two years ago after waiting for 13 months – he blames the delay for her deterioration.
