There will always be hospital waiting lists, the director of the agency now charged with managing waiting list figures, Ms Maureen Lynott, said yesterday as Fianna Fáil came under fire for failing to fulfil a pre-election promise made in 2002 to eliminate waiting lists within two years. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
Ms Lynott, who is director of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), said: "There will always be waiting lists. As long as people get sick and ill and need treatment there will be waiting lists". She was speaking at a press briefing at Government Buildings where latest waiting lists figures were presented.
The Department of Health figures given indicate there were 27,318 people on hospital waiting lists at the end of December, but after these figures were validated by the NTPF, the figures were reduced. Some 4,500 were removed because they were either not available for treatment, not medically suitable for treatment, no longer required treatment or the patients asked for their treatment to be postponed. A "very small percentage" had died, Ms Lynott said.
A further 3,000 people were taken off the list because they were found to be waiting for non-surgical procedures. A working group involving Department of Health and NTPF officials will now look for the best way of dealing with them.
The NTPF now claims, as a result of its "drilling down" exercise, there are just 19,591 patients on hospital waiting lists. These figures include 7,307 patients who are waiting three to six months for surgery; 8,244 who are waiting between six and 12 months; 3,560 who are waiting one to two years for treatment and 480 patients waiting more than two years for operations.
The National Health Strategy published in 2001 said no patient would have to wait more than three months for treatment by the end of 2004. This deadline, like the Fianna Fáil pre-election promise, now also looks set to be missed.
However, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said he had no regrets about setting targets. They put pressure on to get things done, he said. He added that there had been real progress in reducing waiting times for treatment. He said 80 per cent of patients now wait less than one year for surgical treatment.
The waiting list figures presented yesterday were not in the usual format, giving a breakdown of the numbers waiting at each hospital, in each speciality, and with details of whether they were waiting for day or in-patient surgery.
However the figures which were published show four hospitals, all Dublin-based, have the longest waiting times. They are Beaumont, St Vincent's, James Connolly Memorial Hospital and the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital.
Ms Lynott said that when the NTPF was set up two years ago to buy treatment in private hospitals in the Republic and the UK for those waiting longest on waiting lists, it was dealing with patients who were waiting up to eight years for surgery.
She said the vast majority of hospitals and consultants were now co-operating with the NTPF but a small number were not. She cited the example of one Dublin hospital where there are 1,000 people on waiting lists for cataract operations which could be treated within weeks elsewhere in the country if they were referred to the NTPF. While she did not name the hospital, The Irish Times understands this to be the Royal Eye & Ear Hospital. Mr Martin appealed to the hospital to co-operate with the fund.
