Hospital-initiated cancellations of patients’ appointments increased at three of Galway’s public hospitals last year.

Galway University Hospitals – UHG and Merlin Park – cancelled 6,882 patient appointments in 2024, up by 10% compared with the previous year when there were 6,163 hospital-initiated cancellations.

Meanwhile, hospital-initiated cancellations were up by 9% at Portiuncula University Hospital in Ballinasloe last year – from 1,590 in 2023 to 1,746 in 2024.

When compared with hospital-initiated cancellations the previous year, the latest figures for 2024 are relatively favourable but many of those cancellations in 2022 can be attributed to Covid-19 restrictions.

In 2024, about half of all GUH-initiated cancellations were of ‘other day cases’, while ‘return outpatient appointments’ accounted for one in five of GUH’s cancelled appointments.

The biggest category of hospital-initiated cancellations at PUH was ‘return outpatient appointments’, which amounted to 538 cancellations accounting for more than 30% of the total.

GUH and Portiuncula did not have any cancellations for chemotherapy day cases, or for dialysis day cases in 2024, according to the figures supplied to Aontú by the Department of Health.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said nationally, hospitals cancelled 281,996 appointments last year, which he described as “shocking”.

He said more than 700,000 patients are on acute hospital waiting lists.

“That’s over 700,000 people who are likely suffering serious ill health. Many are incapacitated. Hundreds of thousands of these people are experiencing worsening health as a result of the wait. Indeed because of the long wait, many will need more expensive and invasive treatment to recover, if they recover at all.

“It is incredible that nearly 300,000 of these people had their health care appointment cancelled last year. I have no doubt that many of these people had their appointments cancelled more than once,” Deputy Tóibín said.

He said shortages of nurses and doctors were leading to ‘dysfunction’ in hospitals, and so too was overcrowding.

“There is an increase in cancellations when staff are diverted to deal with hundreds of people on trollies. There are management issues here too.

“Hospitals need to be paid on the basis of the number of operations, treatments, therapies, engagements they have with patients, not on the layers of management that they have. We must provide improved pay terms and conditions to get the front-line staff we need,” he added.