CORK UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL PAID OUT HALF A BILLION IN COMPENSATION CLAIMS OVER PAST DECADE - Beckly Kealy
Aontú has uncovered that Cork University Hospital has paid out a whopping half a Billion Euro in compensation claims over the past decade.
The party’s General Election candidate for Cork Northwest, Becky Kealy, says
“That staggering fact was revealed to my party through Dáil Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information Requests” .
“Staff shortages no doubt play a huge part in all this, staff are run ragged ,they are overworked and we are seeing the fruit of this in huge compensation claims and burnt out staff”.
“From 2017 to 2022 some 17,247 patients left the Emergency Department at Cork University Hospital without being seen. This is a damming inditement of our health service. Imagine, these people ,obviously ill, left without receiving treatment”
“Nursing staff are leaving in their droves. From 2019 until the end of the first quarter of 2024, 622 nurses left their jobs in Cork University Hospital. Of course, we know that during the first six months of this year there was a recruitment freeze on nurses in our hospitals, with many nurses effectively locked out of working in our health service. This is hard to fathom - with all the statistics going in the wrong direction, who in their right mind could think that pausing the recruitment of nurses was an appropriate solution? And that’s part of the reason we've arrived at this situation where we have a major problem with staff shortages. This is having an effect too on patient outcomes”.
“The South/South West Hospital Group have had a general trend of increases in the rate of compensation paid out each year. This hospital group paid out €484,371,638 in compensation over the past decade - a half a billion euro!!
“Perhaps the mistakes in the hospital could have been averted if some funding was used to recruit more nurses”.
