It took an average of eight hours for patients to pass through University Hospital Kerry’s Emergency Department last year.
Figures provided to Kerry Sinn Féin TD Pa Daly show average waiting times in the hospital’s ED peaked in the summer last year.
Waiting times over the last five years peaked during the autumn of 2021, when it took an average of over 18 hours from registration to departure in the ED.
In 2019, the average time between registration and departure at University Hospital Kerry’s Emergency Department was over ten hours.
The end of 2019 into the start of 2020 showed a rise in waiting times at the ED, but this dropped sharply with the beginning of the pandemic and first lockdown.
Waiting times at UHK’s ED rose steadily again to the end of 2020, with average waiting times across the whole year of over eight hours.
The figures fluctuated during 2021, with a peak of 18.3 hours from registration to departure from ED in UHK in October of that year, before steadying out at under nine hours.
Average wait times at the hospital’s Emergency Department rose again to almost 12 hours during September 2022, and stayed above eight hours for the entirety of 2023.
Last year, patients had to wait an average of eight or nine hours for the majority of 2024 from entering the ED to departing again, except for December which was around seven and a half hours.
Compared to other hospitals, UHK’s ED waiting times have remained high throughout the last five years, particularly between 2019 and 2021.
Last year, there were six other HSE hospitals out of 28 where people had to wait longer in the Emergency Department than in UHK.
Kerry Sinn Féin TD Pa Daly says these long wait times can force people to seek out medical treatment in other parts of the healthcare system that are also stretched and may be unsuitable.
He’s calling on the government to intervene, and urged Kerry’s government TDs to treat this as a top priority.
