One person in twenty more than 50km from adult emergency hospital

Around 5% of the population, (257,035 people), lived 50km or more from an adult emergency department in a hospital operated by the HSE, while 38,675 people, (0.8% of the population) had a travel distance of 75km or more (see Figure 3.1).

One in three people living in Roscommon were more than 50km from an emergency department, the highest rate in any county, followed by Donegal (26%) and Clare (25%), (see Table 3.1 & Table 3.1a).

Clare had the highest proportion of persons over 75km from an adult emergency department at 6%, followed by Cork County (5.2%), Galway County (3.2%) and Mayo (2.1%).

At the other end of the scale, about 90% of Dublin City residents were within 5km of an emergency department, the highest rate in the country, followed by Cork City at 63% and Galway City at 44%. Nationally, 28% of the population were less than 5km from an emergency department.

There were five counties where all residents lived within 20km of an emergency department – Dublin City, Cork City, Galway City, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin. There were also high percentages of the population within 20km of an emergency department in Fingal (91%), Meath (80%), Kilkenny (74%), Kildare (74%) and Laois (73%).

In contrast, the entire population of Longford was 20km or more from an emergency department, while over 99% of Carlow and Monaghan residents were more than 20km away, (Map 3.1).

Two-thirds of population within 2km of GP location

Over 3 million people (65%) lived within 2km of a GP location while 177,863 people (4%) lived 10km or more away, (see Table 3.2 & Table 3.2a)

People living in Dublin region and the cities of Galway and Cork were generally not far from a GP, with around 90% or more of residents in these counties within 2km proximity.

Half of the people living in Roscommon had to travel 5km or more to visit a GP, followed by Monaghan (48%), Leitrim (43%), Galway County (43%) and Wexford (41%), (Map 3.2).

The highest proportions of the population living 10km or more from a GP location were in Roscommon (15%), Galway County (11%) and Kerry (10%), (see Figure 3.4).

Distance to pharmacies

Over 1 million people throughout the State lived less than 500 metres from a pharmacy, just over one-fifth of the population. In Dublin City 57% of the population (315,570) lived within 500 metres of their closest pharmacy (Table 3.3 & Table 3.3a).

Over half the population in the counties of Roscommon (56%) and Leitrim (51%) had to travel more than 5km to visit a pharmacy, while Galway County (45%), Monaghan (43%) and Mayo (41%) were next highest in this category, (see Map 3.3).

The highest percentage of population living 10km or more from a pharmacy was in Roscommon at 21%, followed by Leitrim (17%) and Galway County (15%), (Figure 3.6).