The Government was last night accused of "massaging" latest hospital waiting list figures after it emerged some 7,500 patients had been removed from the lists in a "validation" exercise. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
Sinn Féin's health spokesman Mr Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin accused the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, of massaging the figures in order to mask the Government's failure to fulfil its promise to end waiting lists within two years. The promise was made two years ago this week. "The Minister for Health and Children is engaging in a statistical exercise which cannot hide the failure of this Government to fulfil the promise it knew it could not keep," he said.
Some 7,500 patients were removed from waiting lists following a National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) validation exercise. It found these patients either did not need surgery, were not available for treatment, not medically suitable for treatment, no longer required it, or wanted to postpone it.
Mr Ó Caoláin added that the figures did not take account of the number of people waiting for appointments with hospital consultants. These are waiting to get on waiting lists and they can be waiting months and even years.
Meanwhile, Labour's Health spokeswoman Ms Liz McManus claimed the new figures indicated numbers on waiting lists had increased. At the end of last September the number of people on waiting lists, according to Department of Health figures, was 27,212, while at the end of December, before the validation exercise, it was 27,318. "So the numbers on the national waiting lists actually increased by just over 100 in the last quarter of 2003," she said. She claimed the NTPF's validation exercise was "designed to artificially bring down the figures".
She questioned why some patients were described as not medically suitable for treatment and therefore removed from the lists.
"Does this category include those whose medical conditions have deteriorated because they are so long on the waiting lists that they will no longer benefit from treatment?
"The health strategy said no adult would be waiting more than 12 months by the end of 2002. In fact, these figure show that 20 per cent of patients are waiting more than a year."
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman Ms Olivia Mitchell said the electorate had been "taken for a ride" two years ago when the Government promised to end waiting lists.