More than 70,100 people did not wait, or left before completing their treatment, in emergency departments during the first seven months of this year, new figures show.
The issue was most prominent at the Mater and St James’s hospitals in Dublin.
There were also 31,821 patients who waited longer than 24 hours to be admitted, or discharged, in emergency departments.
The data was obtained from the HSE under a parliamentary question, submitted by chairperson of the Oireachtas Committee on Health, Social Democrats TD Pádraig Rice.
It showed that the average waiting time in emergency departments for patients between January and July was 9.3 hours.
The Dublin South East Region performed best, with over 67% of patients admitted or discharged in six hours.
However, in Dublin north east and in the south west, just over 49% of patients were admitted or discharged within six hours.
Deputy Rice said emergency departments were in a permanent state of crisis.
He said that every day, hospitals are operating under the constant pressure of overcrowding, short of both staff and beds.
“The fact that 70,000 people left an ED without being seen in the first seven months of this year alone should be setting off alarm bells in the Department of Health,” he added.
In response, the HSE, said that up to last week, there has been an increase of more than 90,000 emergency department attendances (up 7.3%) this year, when compared to last year.
It said this includes almost 17,000 more ED attendances (up 8.9%) from patients aged 75 years and over seeking urgent healthcare.
The HSE said it is committed to improving patient flow through emergency departments.
Mr Rice said the ESRI has said 300 more beds per year are needed to keep up with Ireland’s aging population and growing population, but that last year only 196 new beds were added.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said staff are also needed for those new beds, adding that there is “essentially an embargo of hiring staff within the health service and huge staff shortages and huge pressures.”
Mr Rice said that beyond that there is a need to build up community services to prevent people going to the hospital in the first place.
“We have a huge shortage of GPs, particularly in rural areas, commuter areas, and people end up going to emergency departments because they can’t get access to a GP service.”
He said investment is needed to reform the health service.
“Too much of our care is at the most expensive end in acute hospitals, and that needs to be a shift to primary care and that’s where the resources need to go.”