11,500 attend Louth

Over 11,500 patients attended Injury Unit at the Louth County Hospital last year, according to the RCSI Hospital Group.

‘We know from feedback received that patients who use our Injury Units generally have a very positive experience,’ says Dr Gerry McCarthy, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, and Clinical Lead of the National Emergency Medicine Programme. ‘But we really want to make sure that everyone knows just what our Injury Units do and the efficient and high quality care they will receive when they attend.’

Dr McCarthy added, ‘ Many Injury Units are reporting fast turnaround times for seeing and treating patients. In many cases the average time reported is between one and two hours and sometimes less so patients can save themselves long waiting times by attending Injury Units instead of Emergency Departments when it is appropriate to do so.’

Injury Units can treat patients with broken bones, dislocations, sprains, strains, wounds, scalds and minor burns that are unlikely to need overnight admission to hospital.

Explaining that each unit is linked to a Hub Emergency Department in an acute hospital, Dr McCarthy added, ‘If a patient in an Injury Unit needs to be admitted to hospital they will be referred directly to a linked hospital, in exactly the same way as if they had attended the Emergency Department.’ They do not treat children under the age of five, because of the special requirements of young children attending hospital.’

There is no charge for patients with full medical cards or those patients with valid medical/GP referral letter.