PURCHASE FUND: Four Dublin hospitals and one health board have been singled out for renewed criticism for their failure to refer sufficient numbers of patients to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The hospitals include Dublin's Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, St Vincent's Hospital, Beaumont Hospital and James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown.
These hospitals have a large number of public patients waiting more than a year for treatment and the NTPF, which was was set up to buy private treatment in the Republic and the UK in an attempt to take "long waiters" off waiting lists, is concerned it is not able to reach them.
The director of the NTPF Ms Maureen Lynott said yesterday it was "unsatisfactory and completely unnecessary" for patients at the hospitals to have to wait more than 12 months for treatment when the fund was available to them.
These patients were effectively being "disadvantaged", she said.
Some of the patients being disadvantaged are older people in need of cataract operations. "There is no justification for them having to wait. They could be treated literally within weeks," she said.
Ms Lynott also said the rate of referrals from the Mid Western Health Board (MWHB) was less than satisfactory. Fewer patients from the region were treated under the fund in the first six months of the year than any other health board.
In an attempt to get more referrals from the region the fund has taken the unusual step in recent weeks of writing to GPs and local public representatives in the mid west asking them to make patients aware of the fund.
NTPF figures for the first six months of the year, published yesterday, indicate the board had 1,103 patients on its waiting list at Limerick Regional Hospital in January and had only 127 patients treated under the fund in the six month to the end of June.
This compared to 426 North Eastern Health Board patients being treated under the fund and 611 patients from the South Eastern region being treated under the fund over the same period.
A spokesman for the MWHB claimed the NTPF's figures were inaccurate."The total number of patients waiting for surgery in the mid-west in January 2004 was 771, not 1103 as stated," he said. "To date a total of 748 waiting list patients in the MWHB area have been offered treatment under the initiative.
"Some 379 patients have been successfully treated and 244 patients have refused treatment," he added.
A spokeswoman for James Connolly Memorial Hospital said the hospital had "in recent weeks" referred patients for treatment under the NTPF.
A spokesman for St Vincent's said it had contacted all patients waiting more than a year and some of them had opted not to be sent forward to the NTPF. A number of others could not be referred because of the complexity of their condition.
Beaumont Hospital, which had 269 patients treated under the fund in the first six months of the year compared to 818 from the Mater, said it had a long list of people who were not suitable for referral to the fund but the hospital was nonetheless committed to the programme and would do its utmost in next six months to increase referrals if it could.
No comment was forthcoming from the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital.
Meanwhile Ms Lynott pointed out that waiting times for patients in general have come down significantly in areas where hospitals are co-operating fully with the fund.
Some 87 per cent of hospitals are now referring patients waiting less than 12 months for surgical treatment, she confirmed.
Public patients waiting longer than three months for treatment can contact the NTPF directly on Lo-Call 1890 720 820 to see if they are eligible for treatment.