MORE THAN 1,000 women with concerns about breast cancer have had to wait more than three months to be seen at one of the eight specialist centres for diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer so far this year, new figures show.
This is in breach of national standards set by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) which state that routine referrals to the symptomatic breast disease services in Ireland should be seen within 12 weeks.
The National Cancer Control Programme has acknowledged that the standards were not met in all cases but pointed out yesterday that extra clinics have been established at night time and at weekends to reduce waiting times for patients.
The figures for waiting times at the specialist centres, which have been seen by The Irish Times, were presented to a recent meeting of the HSE board. They show that, while more than 77 per cent of women were seen within three months, some 22.8 per cent of them, or 1,106 women, had to wait longer than three months to be seen.
The figures, which relate to the position for the first three months of this year, also show that while overall 84 per cent of urgent referrals were seen within two weeks, which is the standard set by Hiqa, some 16 per cent were not seen within this timeframe.
Compliance with Hiqa’s standards vary between the eight designated breast cancer centres.
For example, while Beaumont Hospital saw 93.3 per cent of urgent referrals within two weeks, Waterford Regional Hospital saw just 61.4 per cent of its urgent referrals within a fortnight.
Data for the other six centres show that the Mater Hospital complied with the two-week standard for urgent referrals in 88.4 per cent of cases, St Vincent’s Hospital met it in 83.5 per cent of cases, St James’s Hospital did so in 78.6 per cent of cases, Galway’s University College Hospital met it in 93.6 per cent of cases, Limerick Regional Hospital did so in 84.3 per cent of cases and Cork University Hospital (CUH) did so in all cases.
Meanwhile, the hospitals which had the highest percentages of patients waiting longer than the 12 weeks, which was set by Hiqa for routine referrals, were the Mater and Limerick Regional.
In the Mater some 66 per cent of routine referrals or 507 patients had waited longer than 12 weeks by the time they were seen, while in Limerick 52.1 per cent of routine referrals – some 113 patients – had waited longer than three months by the time they were seen.
In Beaumont just four patients waited longer than 12 weeks to be seen, some 21.6 per cent waited longer than this at St Vincent’s, 30.8 per cent waited longer at St James’s, 24.6 per cent did so at Waterford, 6.1 per cent did so in Galway and no patients waited longer than 12 weeks at CUH.
Prof Arnie Hill, surgical oncology adviser to the National Cancer Control Programme, said that while Waterford Regional Hospital saw just 61.4 per cent of its urgent referrals within a fortnight, nearly 100 per cent of them would have been seen within three weeks.
He added that the figures, which reflect the situation at the end of March, were constantly changing and, where there were delays, extra clinics had been put on at night time and at weekends.
He said there had been extra assessment clinics in Limerick on Saturdays to clear the backlog of patients there and another breast surgeon was due to start work in Limerick this summer.
The delays at the Mater, he said, had arisen because of refurbishment at its breast centre but extra clinics had been put on at Beaumont on Tuesday nights and on Saturdays to clear this backlog. The situation was being “actively managed”, he stressed.
The routine referrals, which the standards say should be seen within 12 weeks, would be mainly “low risk” patients, he added.