Less than half of all patients suffering from stroke present to hospital quickly enough to receive emergency treatments, a new report reveals.
Large variations between different hospitals in the time taken to treat patients are also evident in the 2019 national audit of stroke services.
Stroke patients are supposed to be scanned within an hour of arriving in hospital, but in 14 out of 20 hospitals this target was not reached.
In Wexford General Hospital, the average “door to imaging” time was almost 14 hours, compared with one hour and 20 minutes across all hospitals.
Just 49 per cent of patients arrived in hospital within three hours of the onset of their stroke symptoms, down from 53 per cent in 2017, according to the report. This means they are less likely to receive potentially life-saving “clot-busting” treatments.
The average age of stroke patients was 72 years old and a quarter of the patients were aged under 65 years.
Time is critical in the treatment of stroke, which occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted or reduced, starving brain cells of oxygen and nutrients and causing brain cells to die.
Stroke is the third leading cause of death in Ireland and western Europe and the leading cause of severe physical disability in adults.
