The Western Health Board has been urged to take action against patients who waste time and resources by failing to turn up for hospital appointments.
Up to 9,000 people on out-patient waiting lists in counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon failed to turn up for appointments last year, it was revealed yesterday. The non-attendances were criticised at a meeting of the Western Health Board at its Merlin Park headquarters, Galway. The board's director of public health, Dr Mary Hynes, said that for each patient who had failed to attend, appointments had been sent out, a chart had been pulled out and the results of various tests accumulated in preparation for the visit. This was a huge waste of clerical and administrative time. She also pointed out that while staff had recently made efforts to telephone patients or send them reminders of appointments, it seemed to make no difference in the level of attendance.
"The level of non-attendance in all specialities is close to half all new patients being seen. If patients had let us know in good time that they would not be attending it would have allowed us offer some of those slots to other people," Dr Hynes said. "We would appeal to the public to co-operate with us in this matter," she added.
Many board members condemned those who had wasted the time of consultants and other staff by failing to turn up. Cllr Joe Burke suggested that patients who ignored appointments should be penalised rather than being offered second or third appointments. "We can't have that sort of expertise wasted. Something needs to be done about this from a management point of view. It's simply not acceptable that this situation continues," he said.
Mr Padraic McCormack TD said that if people were waiting up to eight years for treatment, as they appeared to be for plastic surgery and orthopaedics at Galway's University College Hospital, then perhaps the reason they had failed to turn up when finally given an appointment was because they had gone private, emigrated or died.
Consultant respiratory physician Dr J.J. Gilmartin said it was nonsense to suggest patients were waiting up to eight years for outpatient appointments. He said the problem of patients not turning up for appointments was something which had always bugged him.
Even though the longest waiting time for his own speciality was only 10 weeks, he had encountered the same problem. In his experience one in five patients weren't turning up. "Maybe they don't realise how much they are putting people out and that they are depriving Johnny next door of his chance of being seen," he said.