More than 8,600 patients waited on trolleys for over a day before being admitted to hospital in the first two months of this year, new figures show.
Of those waiting in emergency departments longer than 24 hours, more than 2,700 were aged over 75, according to figures published by the Health Service Executive.
The number of patients waiting in emergency departments for more than 24 hours in the first two months of last year was 7,625, some 14 per cent fewer.
The target is for patients to be admitted or discharged within nine hours of arrival at an emergency department, but one out of five was forced to wait longer than this time in February, the report shows.
On any given day, about 150 patients wait more than nine hours for emergency treatment.
The hospitals with the worst records for long emergency department waits were St Vincent’s, Naas and Beaumont. University Hospital Limerick, St Vincent’s and University Hospital Galway were worst for long waits among over 75-year-olds.
The HSE attributes the delays to a “sustained increase” in attendances - up 11 per cent in February, and 6 per cent among over-65s requiring higher levels of care. The number of flu cases was also higher than last winter and peaked earlier, it says.
No reason has been given for the delay in publishing performance data for the health service in 2016 until May, when the general election campaign and the process of forming a Government was over.
Some 17,693 outpatients and 3,079 inpatients were waiting longer than the 15-month official target at the end of February, the figures show. Both numbers were up significantly on January, a month that saw many elective procedures and regular appointments cancelled due to the overcrowding crisis in emergency departments.
Barely half - 53 per cent - of prostate cancer patients were offered an appointment with the target time of 20 working days of referral in a cancer centre. The performance for breast and lung cancer, and radiotherapy, was closer to target. The report says attracting and retaining consultant staff, particularly in urology, is a challenge, as is the growth in referrals for all types of cancer.
There were 33 “serious reportable events” in the health service in February, twice as many as in the preceding month.
