Emergency Medicine

Each year, a growing number of people attend Cork University Hospital’s Emergency Department; over 70,000 patients attended in 2023, many of whom were discharged home having completed their entire episode of care in the Emergency Department. 

Our vision is to provide the best emergency care for our community. This will be achieved by treating patients with dignity, respect and compassion.

The Emergency Department is the “Always Open/24-hour service” part of the ‘Acute Floor’ providing unscheduled care (health care which isn’t foreseen or planned). Our role is to treat a patient’s pain and distress, identify and diagnose life threatening illness through examination and diagnostic work up, commence time critical treatments and, in 30% of cases, refer for ongoing and specialist care to the in-house specialty teams. Emergency Clinicians study a broad medical curriculum to help them differentiate clues, signs and symptoms to deliver effective emergency care. They also get to know the intricacies of the hospital and community health services so they can get the patient on the right pathway.

We are very fortunate at CUH to have access to the majority of medical and surgical specialty services on-site. Key services within the ‘Acute Floor’ model at CUH working hand in glove with Emergency Medicine include Acute Medicine, Acute Surgery, Orthopaedics and Plastic Surgery, Paediatrics, Cardiology, and Liaison Psychiatry; each working to deliver the optimum package of care to our patients.