Doctors working in Emergency Departments (EDs) have said they are not surprised that thousands of people choose to leave these departments before their treatment is completed.

In some cases, patients have not even been seen by a medic.

According to figures from the HSE, around 50,000 patients left EDs in 2015 before being seen or completing their treatment. However, the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine (IAEM) has said that this ‘comes as no surprise'.

It also believes that the figures for 2016 will be even higher ‘as ED crowding has been allowed to worsen this year'.

The IAEM said that it has been campaigning on this issue for over a decade now and claimed that serious overcrowding has led to ‘a significant number of unnecessary deaths', as well as poorer outcomes for many patients.

"Inevitably, there will be many patients among this 50,000 who have suffered an adverse medical outcome as a result of being denied the opportunity to be seen in a timely fashion.

"Admitted patients who should be in a ward bed are warehoused in EDs in increasing numbers to their detriment," the IAEM commented.

However, the association pointed out that EDs are capable of functioning well ‘when they can have patients admitted to a hospital bed in a timely fashion'.

It said that the solution to this serious problems involves having an adequate number of hospital beds, so that those who need it can be admitted as soon as the decision is made.

"The chorus of calls for there to be alternative pathways to hospital admission other than through the ED misses the point that creating more and more doors into a system so woefully short of capacity doesn't of itself create capacity," it added.