Numbers waiting for ED treatment for more than 24 hours treble 

In January 2021, the first month of a five-month lockdown, there were 114,875 presentations, with 23,867 admissions. That is compared to 113,270 presentations and 29,482 admissions in January 2020, before the Covid pandemic struck.

The number of patients waiting over 24 hours at emergency departments has nearly trebled in the first five months of 2022.

The HSE has confirmed there were 25,000 people waiting longer than 24 hours for admission via an ED between January and May. Of those, more than 8,000 patients were over 75. 

The figures for all patients in the same period in 2021 was 8,865 of whom 2,500 were over 75s.

The increase cannot be blamed on the country coming out of lockdown. While the opening months of 2021 were under public health restrictions, figures from the Department have shown that emergency department presentations actually remained stable compared to the same months pre-pandemic.

For example, in January 2021, the first month of a five-month lockdown, there were 114,875 presentations, with 23,867 admissions. That is compared to 113,270 presentations and 29,482 admissions in January 2020, before the Covid pandemic struck.

The HSE's Anne O'Connor said in February that in a one-week period a record number of 28,000 people had presented to EDs.

 The HSE told the Irish Examiner that between January 2022 and the end of June 2022 "approximately 719,000 patients have attended Emergency Departments (EDs) in Ireland with over 175,000 patients being admitted to hospital". This works out at just under 120,000 presentations a month.

"It is also important to note that patients attending EDs are prioritised for treatment based on the severity of their illness and need for emergency care. This means that patients not requiring urgent emergency care may experience long wait times in the ED," a HSE statement said.

Growing crisis

Sinn Féin's health spokesman David Cullinane, to whom the latest figures were released, said they show the crisis in the country's emergency departments is going "from bad to worse". 

"This is putting real pressure on acute services, leads to a cancellation of elective procedures, and drives up waiting lists. There are already 900,000-plus on acute waiting lists," Mr Cullinane said. “The number of patients waiting more than 24 hours month-on-month is increasing and is unacceptable.

“We need to increase in-patient bed capacity but crucially we need to increase the number of recovery beds in the community to speed up discharges."

Mr Cullinane also said the delivery of community health infrastructure needs to be accelerated. 

"Far too many patients who should be cared for in the home or in the community have no choice but to present to emergency departments," he said. "We have a deficit in GP capacity, out of hours GP services is patchy and ineffective and millions of home help hours and intensive home care packages cannot be delivered due to staff shortages.

“Unless we address these capacity issues with a concrete plan we will continue to see high levels of presentations in emergency departments, with patients enduring unacceptably high wait times and many opting to leave without receiving care.” 

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

The figures also show that nearly 8% of people who attended an emergency department in May and June left before they had been treated. In May, 9,727 or 7.7% of people, left before they had been treated and in June that figure was 9,577 or 7.9%.

The HSE said the figures do not differentiate between those who required admission but decided to leave ED before admission and those who needed treatment in the ED but left the ED after registration and before completion of the treatment.

Hospitals in the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group had 11.4% and 12.1% of patients leave in May and June, respectively, with over 10% seen in Tullamore, Naas, St James's, and Tallaght. In Tallaght the figures were 17.6% and 18.8% leavers for the two months.