Doctors in Northern Ireland turned on the Minister of Health today and demanded action after hospital waiting lists in the province reached a record high.
The British Medical Association said there was a "downward spiral to a third rate health service" and urged radical action to reduce the continuing climb in the waiting lists.
It said the Department of Health was failing to address the issue - waiting lists have gone up every quarter for the past three years despite a massive infusion of cash and are now the worst in the UK.
The number of people waiting for admission to hospitals for in-patient treatment stands at just under 60,000, with over 140,000 waiting for outpatient treatment.
The figures reflected an 8.7 per cent leap in in-patient waiting lists and 9.5 per cent in the out-patient list over the past year.
Dr Brian Patterson, vice chairman of the BMA's Northern Ireland Council said: "It must be remembered that each statistic represents a patient who is suffering because of the failure by the Department of Health here to address this totally unacceptable situation."
Doctors did not want waiting lists and were working at capacity to provide the best possible health service that could to patients, he said.
However, they were being impeded by "bureaucracy, lack of resources and total lack of decision-making within the healthcare system".
Dr Patterson said doctors "do not want to offer an apology of a health service to the people of Northern Ireland" but "that is what is happening.
"Patients deserve better than that, as do the people operating the service."
In a hard hitting attack on the Department headed by Sinn Fein's Mr Bairbre de Brun, Dr Patterson said it was not enough to pour money into the NHS. It had to be targeted where it was most needed, within the context of a coherent strategic plan "otherwise finance disappears into the NHS abyss and is lost".
Ms de Brun expressed concern about the totals and put hospital trusts on notice that she expected them to deliver on targets she had set for the year.
But those targets do not mean a reduction in the numbers but a requirement to hold them at their present level.
The Health Minister, described the increase in the last three months as slight, and said much of it was down to new fertility services which were not previously available.
But she said: "I am concerned about this increase, small as it is. Our target this year is to hold waiting lists at their present levels and I shall now be looking to the service, and particularly chief executives of trusts, to get us back on course."
Ms de Brun said she had already taken significant action to put in place a solid foundation for tackling the waiting problem.
There is an increasing lack of confidence in the Health Minister's ability to tackle the problem of waiting lists, Ulster Unionist health spokesman Rev Robert Coulter said.
The North Antrim Assembly member said: "The situation is now critical. Under the present Health Minister the service has slipped into terminal decline."
SDLP Health spokesman Ms Annie Courtney expressed alarm at the latest figures. She said: "People are beginning to ask where they money that has been allocated to deal with waiting lists is going.
"Over recent months millions of pounds have been pumped into tackling this problem. Yet despite this, the figures continue to rise."
PA