Well over half of A&E attendances are self-referrals

Well over half of the attendances to the Accident and Emergency Department at Mater Dei Hospital were self-referrals, information tabled in parliament shows.

The figures, pertaining to the period between June and September 2014, also showed that only 11,279 of the total 42,299 attendances to the department were admitted to the hospital.

The information was tabled in parliament by Health Minister Konrad Mizzi in reply to a question raised by shadow health minister Claudio Grech.

During this period, 30,667 of these attendances were self-referral while only 10,502 were referred to by a doctor. 1,130 others were categorized as ‘other’.

The average length of stay was 4.9 days, with the average going slightly up during July when the average length of stay was of 5.2 days.

The average rate of bed occupancy was of 83%.

Between June and September 2014, a total of 17,150 operations were carried out.