{"id":602320,"date":"2026-08-23T17:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T17:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/602320\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T17:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T17:28:11","slug":"more-than-1400-people-waiting-on-rheumatology-treatment-in-cork-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/602320\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 1,400 people waiting on rheumatology treatment in Cork hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A total of 1,427 people are awaiting rheumatology treatment in\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41897632.html\">Cork hospitals<\/a>, and almost 90% have not even been given an appointment yet, new data shows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Rheumatology is a medical specialty focused on the diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune diseases, joint and muscle pain, and inflammatory conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">There are 975 people awaiting treatment in\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41899702.html\">Cork University Hospital<\/a> (CUH) and 452 in South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH), the HSE data shows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In CUH, there are 873 people waiting who do not even have an appointment date yet \u2014 436 of these patients have been waiting up to three months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Just 102 people on CUH\u2019s waiting lists have been given an appointment date so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The CUH figure marks an increase from the 692 people awaiting rheumatology treatment there in August 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">In SIVUH, 368 people have no appointment date. Of these, 159 have been waiting less than three months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">There are 84 people who have an appointment date, 24 of whom have been on waiting lists less than three months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Waiting lists too long<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The data was provided to Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Cork South Central, Donnchadh \u00d3 Laoghaire, who said: \u201cRight across our healthcare system, the waiting lists are far, far too long.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cIt has a huge impact on the quality of people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cThe targets for disciplines such as rheumatology are meant to be about 10 weeks under Sl\u00e1intecare but we see that there are more than 40 people waiting for longer than a year in the South Infirmary and a significant amount \u2014 over 143 people \u2014 waiting longer than six months in CUH.\u00a0\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">&#8220;While progress has been made in this regard, it still has a huge impact on the ability to ensure people are diagnosed appropriately, and that interventions can be made at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Mr \u00d3 Laoghaire added that rheumatic diseases and conditions can be potentially debilitating in the long run, and he called for further investment to recruit additional staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cWe need to ensure that the staffing required is actually put in place because too often recruitment processes are far too slow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A total of 1,427 people are awaiting rheumatology treatment in\u00a0Cork hospitals, and almost 90% have not even been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15607,59626,79,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-602320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cork-health","tag-cork-hospitals","tag-cork-news","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}