HOSPITAL waiting lists felt by over 5,500 in the final three months of last year, according to the Department of Health.
The figures show a 17 per cent reduction in waiting lists for elective surgery, down from 31,519 last September to 25,959 at the beginning of this year.
Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, secretary general of the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association, said the reduction "only brings us back to where we were two years ago".
He said that numbers were expected to rise again in the coming months as a result of the nurses dispute and recent increases in casualty admissions.
At least 10,000 adults on the current surgery lists had been waiting for more than a year, he said. As many as 3,000 children were also on the lists, many of whom were waiting for the treatment of ailments like tonsillitis.
Commenting on a departmental pledge of £8 million this year to further reduce the lists, Mr Fitzpatrick said at least double that was needed.
"We are only deferring the problem from one year to the next. Meanwhile, people are chronically ill, and are getting worse. It should be remembered a lot of these people waiting for treatment are off work and are, therefore, costing the State money in terms of social welfare and the loss of taxes. It's very much a false economy," he said.
The president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Mr Hugh Bredin, said that funding of £20 million each year was needed to effectively tackle the problem. While he welcomed the reduction in numbers on waiting lists, he warned that patients still faced unreasonable delays for treatment.
At one regional health board, he said, someone looking for a hip replacement would have to wait for an average of 8.5 years for the completion of both in-patient and out-patient treatment.
Over £50 million has been spent by the Department on its waiting list initiative since it was introduced in 1992. Following the initiative, the number of people waiting for elective surgery fell from 41,000 to 23,700 in December 1994, its lowest level in recent years.
