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St Luke’s General Hospital for Carlow and Kilkenny bucked national trend for waiting times last month

HSE figures show over a third of patients were waiting more than 12 hours to access EDs across the country

St Luke’s Hospital bucked the national trend for waiting times during May.

It had the shortest average wait for admission to the emergency dept of all hospitals in the country last month.

Figures provided to Sinn Féin Health Spokesperson David Cullinane reveal that over a third of patients were waiting more than 12 hours to access hospital emergency departments last month.

The national average was a waiting time of over 11 hours but at St Lukes hospital for Carlow-Kilkenny the average wait was 2.9 hours.

In fact the local hospital has been consistently around the 3 hour mark for admissions every month so far this year.

The Sláintecare target for admission to an emergency department is 6 hours – St Luke’s succeeded in admitting 78% of patients within 6 hours last month.

13.6% were admitted within 6-9 hours, 5.9% took 9-12 hours and 2.6% took 12 hours or longer.

Waiting times for patients over the age of 75 have been slightly longer at the local hospital so far this year but improved in May according to the HSE figures.