Hospital discharges by diagnosis — Cork

213,381, latest 2025 (+2.6% year on year, from 208,033).

Hospital discharges stood at 213,381 in 2025. That is 2.6% higher than a year earlier. That is the highest value in the published series, which begins in 2017. Its low point was 164,698 in 2020; the latest reading is 30% above that. Other measures for the same year: infectious and parasitic diseases 2,832, neoplasms (cancer) 19,420, endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases (incl. diabetes) 3,369, mental and behavioural disorders 1,484, diseases of the nervous system 5,403, diseases of the circulatory system 8,040, diseases of the respiratory system 9,685, diseases of the digestive system 21,498, diseases of the musculoskeletal system 12,506, diseases of the genitourinary system 9,748, pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium 8,765, injury and poisonings 8,009.

What these terms mean

Discharge

One completed hospital stay -- the patient left, was transferred, or died. Not a count of people: one patient admitted several times in a year is several discharges. Source

HIPE

The Hospital In-Patient Enquiry, run by the Healthcare Pricing Office, which collects discharge records from Irish acute hospitals and is the source CSO publishes this table from. Source

Principal diagnosis

The one diagnosis coders judge chiefly responsible for a hospital stay. Other conditions present are not separately counted in this dataset.

Area (of residence)

The patient's usual county of residence, not the county of the treating hospital. A patient from Mayo treated in a Dublin hospital is counted under Mayo.

Before you use these figures

• This counts hospital stays, not people: Each figure is a discharge -- one completed hospital stay -- not a person. Someone admitted more than once in the year is counted once per stay. A rise can mean more people needing care, or the same people needing it more often.
• Counted where the patient lives, not where they were treated: Area is the patient's usual county of residence, not the hospital's location. Major hospitals, mostly in Dublin and other cities, routinely treat patients from other counties, and those discharges are counted under the patient's home county here. This measures the hospital care residents of a county needed, not how busy that county's own hospitals were.
• These 12 groups are about half of all discharges: The diagnosis groups shown here cover roughly 52% of all hospital discharges -- between 51.6% and 53.6% in every year from 2017 to 2025, and between 46% and 62% for any individual county and year. They are twelve of the twenty-one ICD-10 chapters, chosen for relevance, so nearly half of all discharges fall into a group not shown at all. The largest omission by far is "Factors influencing health status" (ICD-10 Z00-Z99) at 28% of all discharges: hospital contacts such as dialysis and chemotherapy sessions and follow-up care, which are recorded against the reason for the visit rather than a disease. "Symptoms, signs and abnormal findings" (R00-R99), where no more specific diagnosis was reached, is another 9%. Read the groups shown as twelve separate trends, never as a breakdown of the total beside them.
• One diagnosis per stay: Principal Diagnosis is the single condition judged chiefly responsible for that hospital stay. Other conditions the patient had at the time are not counted here even if also treated, so this understates the true burden of any condition that is often secondary rather than the reason for admission.
• A curated selection of diagnosis groups, not the full breakdown: CSO publishes discharges across a much finer 169-category hierarchy than shown here, with each broad chapter (for example "circulatory system") containing its own more specific rows (for example "heart failure"). The chapters shown are a selection of the broad groups, chosen for relevance -- they do not add up to "All causes", which is shown as its own figure, and summing the chapters shown would both double-count (some chapters overlap hierarchy levels in the source) and undercount (not every chapter is shown).
• Not adjusted for population: This figure — 213,381 — is well outside the typical range for other areas currently publishing this dataset (median about 49,157 across 25 other areas). This is a raw count, not adjusted for population — a larger area is expected to report a larger number regardless of anything unusual happening there. Not itself a sign of a data problem.
• Not adjusted for population, 2020: This area's 2020 figure was 164,698, well outside the typical range for other areas that reported for 2020 (median about 34,193 across 25 other areas). This figure is a raw count, not adjusted for population — a larger area is expected to report a larger number regardless of anything unusual happening there. Not itself a sign of a data problem.

Cite this figure:

Hospital discharges by diagnosis
213,381 for Cork, 2025
Caveats: This counts hospital stays, not people; Counted where the patient lives, not where they were treated; These 12 groups are about half of all discharges; One diagnosis per stay; A curated selection of diagnosis groups, not the full breakdown; Not adjusted for population; Not adjusted for population, 2020
StatsMapped last confirmed this figure unchanged on 11 Oct 2026.
Source: CSO PxStat
https://statsmapped.com/ireland/county/cork/hospital-discharges-cork

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