Almost 27,000 adverse incidents involving patients at University of Limerick Hospitals Group have been reported over the past 5 years according to data released to Aontu through parliamentary questions. The incidents are recorded on the HSE’s National Incident Management System (NIMS).
Last year saw a record of 6,307 notifications made to the UL Hospital Group. the number of adverse incidents has increased by 36% in 5 years in the Midwest hospitals covering Ennis, Nenagh, St Johns and Raheen.
Adverse incidents can cover a wide range of events, such as slips, trips, falls, surgery on the wrong part of the body or patient, wrong medication, and patient injury and death.
Aontu PRO Eric Mr Nelligan says “It’s worrying that over 26,500 people have been the victim of an adverse incident while seeking medical treatment with the UL Hospital Group.”
Aontu previously established that the State Claims Agency has paid out some €1.4 billion in compensation following HSE ‘adverse incidents’ in the past five years and is now seeking a breakdown of this figure on a hospital-by-hospital basis.
The party is concerned that understaffing is putting enormous pressure on staff and that there is a proven correlation between understaffing and mistakes being made.
Nationally 106,000 incidents were reported last year. Since 2018, some 67,000 incidents required first aid, while 50,000 required medical treatment, 435 resulted in long term disability or incapacity while a further 48 suffered permanent incapacity and 3,142 persons died as a result of the mistakes.
