JUST 18 out of 49 hospitals in the State have a website and among those that do, the customer information they provide is patchy and erratic, a survey just published has found.
The Irish Patients Association looked at the information provided to patients and visitors by hospital websites.
The researcher, Simon McMahon, reviewed websites using addresses gathered from the HSE website.
He sought information on 10 facilities or services in the hospitals from their websites.
The hospitals were given a score of 10 for each of the services on which there was information.
Beaumont Hospital and St Vincent's University Hospital, both in Dublin, each scored 80.
Beaumont had no information on internet facilities and vending machines.
St Vincent's had none on whether there was a change machine or internet facilities.
The lowest scoring hospitals for website information were the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, and St Michael's Hospital, Dún Laoghaire which each got 20 points - for having internet facility information and for information about car parking.
Hospitals that had no websites included Cork University Hospital, Waterford Regional Hospital and Wexford General Hospital.
"It seems ironic that only 18 out of the 49 have their own website," said a statement from the Irish Patients Association, "especially when some of our hospitals - such as Cork University Maternity Hospital - have commissioned a state-of-the-art robotic surgical team but do not have a website."
