The accident and emergency department at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda is "entirely unfit for current and future purposes", according to an unpublished consultants' report commissioned by the Health Service Executive (HSE).
The report says the emergency department is far too small for the volume of activity and the type of services being provided, and that to exacerbate this problem it is completely ill-equipped to provide appropriate care facilities for patients waiting to be treated.
The report says there are only two sinks for the entire department and that hygiene and infection issues are "a matter of concern". It says that ideally a new emergency facility should be provided as part of the development of the whole hospital site.
The review of emergency services at the hospital was one of 10 such exercises carried out nationally by consultants Tribal Secta for the HSE. The reports have never been published, although the findings on three hospitals were revealed by The Irish Times.
The report says that much of the infrastructure at Our Lady of Lourdes is old and has been developed incrementally, "providing new services for increasing numbers of patients without the level of requisite planning for capacity and sustainability".