UHW has 50,000 on waiting lists 

Nearly 50,000 people are on waiting lists for appointments at University Hospital Waterford, with 43,972 people stuck waiting for outpatient appointments.

The latest data published by the National Treatment Purchase Fund shows that 49,515 people are on the waiting lists for various appointment types in UHW while nationally, 700,739 people are on such waiting lists.

At University Hospital Waterford, the majority of people are on waiting lists for outpatient appointments - treatments that do not require hospitalisation - with a queue of 43,972 for such healthcare. A further 4,818 are waiting for day-case treatment, while the waiting list for inpatient care is 456.

Of the nearly 50,000 appointments sitting on waiting lists, 3,256 are waiting for cardiology appointments. A further 7,128 people are waiting for Orthopaedic appointments and 1,251 people are stuck queueing for Rheumatology appointments.

Of those appointments, 3,282  are patients on the list for urology appointments.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association calculated in July 2024, that there was an increase of 328,000 in the number of people waiting for care compared with May 2017, at the launch of Sláintecare.

The figures at the time showed that the national waiting list figure had reached its highest ever at 911,500. The unwanted record surpassed the previous record of 910,000 set in August 2022, according to the IHCA.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner earlier this year, the IHCA vice president Gabrielle Colleran said that lowered Government targets for reducing the numbers “may take a decade or more to get under control unless the opening of long-promised additional hospital capacity is fast-tracked".

The number of people on hospital waiting lists nationally has dropped more than 200,000 since July.