The number of people over the age of 75 on waiting lists for health care continues to rise.
The Department of Health released figures that show there are 84,000 over 75 waiting for care.
Outpatient lists are up 36,000 on 2014 figures, with inpatient lists rising by more than 3,000 over the same period.
Latest figures show that there are 1.3 million people currently on healthcare waiting lists – a long running problem exacerbated by Covid-19.
The figures also show that 25,000 people over 75 have been waiting for longer than a year for an outpatient consultation.
The group also have bad experiences when attending Emergency departments with nearly 4,500 over 75s waiting longer than 24 hours for admission to a hospital emergency department so far this year.
Research by Dr. Niamh Cummins, a Lecturer in Public Health at the School of Medicine at the University of Limerick has revealed that over-crowding and the practice of “corridor medicine” is a significant patient safety issue which is associated with adverse outcomes including increased morbidity and mortality.
Recent research from the UK indicates that there is one excess death for every 67 patients that stay in the emergency department for 8 to 12 hours.
According to data from the Patient Experience Time survey in 2020 over 30% of patients were still waiting to be discharged or admitted after waiting for more than 6 hours in Irish emergency departments.
