One in six ED patients at Lourdes Hospital in Louth were already on a waiting list
Report analysed nearly 4,900 Emergency Department attendances at Drogheda hospital
1 in 6 patients who attended the Emergency Department at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, in January 2026 was already on a hospital waiting list, according to findings presented by the hospital to the Emergency Department Advisory Taskforce.
For 187 of those patients, the clinical team assessed the ED visit as directly related to the condition they were already waiting to have treated.
The review examined all 4,872 attendances by patients aged 16 and over at the OLOL Emergency Department during January 2026, cross-referencing each against the hospital’s active outpatient and inpatient/day case waiting lists.
Where a patient appeared on both, clinical correlation was assessed by comparing the ED presenting complaint and/or diagnosis against the waiting list specialty and/or intended procedure description. It is the first time this link has been measured using Irish data.
The Irish Patients’ Association, which formally requested this type of analysis in November 2020, is calling for a national study, saying:
“ For six years we have been asking the health service a simple question: are patients on hospital waiting lists ending up in Emergency Departments for the same condition they are waiting to have treated? Drogheda has now answered that question for one hospital for one month. The answer is yes, for some patients. That is no longer a theory. It is a measured fact, and it deserves a national response.”
Of 649 patients also on the outpatient waiting list, 139 (2.9% of all ED attendances) were assessed as attending for a condition directly related to the specialty for which they were waiting. Of 113 also on the inpatient/day case waiting list, 48 (1.0%) were directly correlated. Combined: 762 patients on a waiting list, 187 with a directly linked ED visit.
According to the Irish Patients Association: “A further 62 cases were classified as indeterminate. ED presenting complaints in these cases were recorded using non-specific iPMS terms such as ‘unwell adult’ or ‘no exit diagnosis’, making clinical correlation impossible to determine. These are excluded from the directly correlated figures. The 187 figure is therefore a floor, not a ceiling.
“Where a patient is already on a hospital waiting list and then attends an Emergency Department for the same condition, that is a significant patient-safety and hospital-flow signal. The study does not prove that the waiting list caused the ED attendance, but it does show that, for some patients, a scheduled-care need has entered emergency care. That is why this finding should be examined nationally.”
Nationally. at the end of May 2026, 825,942 people were on active hospital waiting lists in Ireland, up 109,369 (+15.3%) vs May 2025. More than 138,000 have waited over a year, up 22,557 (+19.4%) in twelve months. More than 61,000 have been waiting 18 months or more.
GI Endoscopy, a key diagnostic pathway for cancer and serious gastrointestinal conditions, has seen the sharpest deterioration: the active list grew 38.9% year on year; patients waiting 12 to 18 months increased by 244.6%.
Applying the Drogheda figures nationally, the Irish Patients Association further said that: “For illustrative purposes only: Ireland has approximately 1.74 million annual ED attendances. Applying the OLOL rate of 3.8% directly correlated attendances would suggest approximately 67,000 such attendances nationally per year.
The IPA said it is calling for:
• A national study using the same methodology across a representative sample of hospitals over a full twelve-month period
• Routine publication of waiting-list and ED correlation data, as requested by the IPA in November 2020
• Consideration of whether targeted early intervention for long-waiting patients could reduce avoidable ED presentations