Kilcoyne hits out at ‘frightening’ number of deaths at MUH emergency department

ONE-HUNDRED-and-seventeen people died in Mayo University Hospital’s emergency department between 2019 and 2023, according to new HSE figures.

The number of deaths which occurred in the Castlebar hospital was presented to the HSE Regional Health Forum by the Saolta hospital group, which manages MUH.

It has not been confirmed if these people died on trolleys or in treatment bays.

The most recent meeting of the Forum heard that 95 patients died in the emergency department at Galway University Hospital while 150 died at the emergency department in Sligo University Hospital. This compares to 239 fatalities which occurred in University Hospital Limerick during the same four-year period.

Cllr Michael Kilcoyne, a member of the HSE Regional Health Forum, described the number of fatalities at MUH as ‘absolutely frightening’.

‘Serious questions’

The Independent councillor said the figures raised ‘serious questions’ about the hospital’s emergency department.

A total of 211 people were left without a hospital bed in MUH in the month of April, a drop from an all-time record of 424 set in April of 2023.

“I’m shocked at these figures … it raises serious questions,” Cllr Kilcoyne told The Mayo News.

“Did some of these people die unnecessarily? Clearly there was a shortage of beds. Clearly there was a shortage of staff. It seems to me, in many of these cases they were just left there to die.”

Cllr Kilcoyne claimed that the recent drop in trolley figures in MUH was due to patients being discharged sooner ‘probably to die at home’.

A new two-storey extension emergency department at MUH has been granted planning approval. Plans for a new accommodation block are also currently being progressed.

The hospital has long been beset by large numbers of people attending its emergency department.

Cllr Kilcoyne described the progression of new infrastructure at the hospital as ‘very late’ but ‘moving in the right direction’.

“People will still have to wait a number of years before the service is what it should have been up to ten years ago, twelve years ago,” he said.

“It’s moving in the right direction, but if you get sick in the meantime the same system is there as there was three years ago, four years ago.”

In a response issued to The Mayo News, Saolta said that the hospital had recorded a 27 percent drop in the number of patients waiting on trolleys so far in 2024 despite a 19 percent increase in attendances.

They attributed this to 'more efficient bed management', the opening of two new acute beds in the Elderly Medicine ward and six surge beds in St John’s ward in the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar.

It added that avoidable readmission rates at 7 days and 30 days had 'not been negatively impacted to date'.

“In MUH we have done a lot of work to improve efficiency in the patient journey, the results are reduced length of stay until the patient is deemed medically fit for discharge and less patients on trolleys. The more efficient management of the patients' journey in hospital will ensure more efficient use of all beds,” stated a Saolta spokesperson.

The group said the majority of the people who died in the emergency department took place in resuscitation or on presentation to the emergency department.

“Regarding data on deaths that occur in EDs, by their very nature, emergency departments have critically ill people coming in, approximately 1 percent of whom will need immediate resuscitation and approximately 20 percent of patients will need urgent review, and sadly people do deteriorate and die in EDs despite best efforts of staff.”

MUH is to receive an additional 97 beds in the coming years under the Acute Inpatient Hospital Bed Expansion Plan.