Increase in cancellation of appointments in Mayo hospital are 'alarming' says TD

A MAYO TD has described as alarming the 41 percent increase in cancelled appointments in Mayo University Hospital over the last year.

The number of outpatient appointment cancellations in Mayo University Hospital in 2024 reached 1,297 which is an increase of 832 from 2023 when the total figure was 915.

Aontú TD, Paul Lawless said the increase in the number of cancellations was alarming and needs to be addressed by the HSE.

“These are real people being told that their often long-awaited appointments are cancelled. It’s simply unacceptable,” said Deputy Lawless. “Many of these patients are very ill and hoping to get treatment as soon as possible. They prepare themselves physically and emotionally for surgery only to have their appointment cancelled unceremoniously.

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“In Galway University Hospital there has been an 11 percent increase in cancellations rising from 6,163 in 2023 to 6,882 in 2024. There are terminally ill cancer patients having their treatment delayed as a result of government oversight.

“What’s happening here is that appointments are being cancelled because staff are being redirected and redeployed to the emergency department because of a peak in presentations to A&E. There is a crisis of understaffing across all areas of our healthcare system and there’s a knock on effect taking place. A shortage of GPs means more people are presenting to emergency departments for routine care, placing additional pressure on hospitals,” he said.

Deputy Lawless reiterated Aontú’s call for practical solutions to address this pressing issue of appointments being cancelled.

“We need to see the recruitment of more frontline staff, as well as the introduction of a seven-day consultant-led roster to prevent patients from being left to pile up without care. We should also implement a proper national patient identifier system. I know of extremely distressing cases where appointment cancellations have been sent to deceased patients due to outdated IT systems,” he said. 

The Knock-based TD added that the figures on cancellations come on the heels of a broader crisis in hospital safety and staffing. Further information, he said released to Aontú last week revealed that 109,000 adverse incidents were recorded in Irish hospitals in 2023. Of these, 469 tragically resulted in death, with 160 suspected to have died by suicide.

“These are heartbreaking statistics,” Deputy Lawless said. “Behind each of these figures is a person, a family, a tragedy. And behind many of these tragedies is a hospital system that simply doesn’t have enough doctors, nurses or frontline staff to deliver safe, timely care.”

Deputy Lawless also criticised the spiralling costs of medical negligence and adverse incident payouts. Over the last ten years, the State has paid out €2.5 billion in compensation due to hospital errors and adverse events.

“We are pouring money into a broken system into layers of administration and compensation payouts while the frontline is starved of resources,” he said. “It is a damning indictment of successive governments that, despite record investment, we are not recruiting and retaining the healthcare professionals we so desperately need.”