A&E delays over non-urgent X-ray referrals

THE overcrowded A&E department at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick is being clogged up by non-urgent cases because GPs say they are forced to refer routine X-ray cases there in order to get prompt examinations.

It takes up to a month for a patient referred by a GP to get an X-ray examination at the hospital, the slowest response for any hospital in the region.

X-ray patients referred to St John’s Hospital, also in Limerick, get an appointment within a week, and at Nenagh General Hospital, X-ray patients referred by a GP are seen within days.