Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has acknowledged that thousands of patients are languishing on unpublished waiting lists for scans and other tests but says there is no attempt to conceal the information.
Mr Varadkar says the Health Service Executive stopped publishing information on waiting times for diagnostics because it wasn't accurate and comparable across hospitals. It would do so again in the future once these issues were addressed.
He was responding to Fianna Fáil health spokesman Billy Kelleher, who had called on the Government to explain why delays in carrying out tests on tens of thousands of patients were not being disclosed in official reports. Mr Kelleher claimed that some patients have been waiting more than two years for potentially life-saving tests, but it was not being recorded as the lists were "hidden".
Major backlogs
Figures supplied by the HSE to Mr Kelleher show that 27,000 people are currently on a list for a scan, with major backlogs at St Vincent’s Hospital and the
Mater Hospital
in Dublin, where patients are waiting for over a year. At Mid-Western
Regional Hospital
in
Limerick
, 2,000 people are waiting more than two years for diagnostics.
The HSE says it stopped publishing data on waiting times for diagnostics earlier this year because there were “discrepancies” in the figures. The lists are being “validated” to ensure urgent patients are seen as a priority and the information will be published again early in the new year.
All urgent cases for patients requiring diagnostics are being dealt with in seven days, according to a spokesman, while four out of five patients for routine scans are seen within 12 months. Beaumont, St Vincent's, the Mater and the University of Limerick have patients waiting over 12 months.
Mr Kelleher said the scale of the delays was extremely alarming, and things were being made worse by the information being concealed.
“Thousands of people are being forced to wait unacceptable amounts of time for diagnostic tests, and these excessive delays have the potential to jeopardise patient prognosis and recovery.”
Denying the claim that the information was being concealed, Mr Varadkar says it was supplied to Mr Kelleher by the HSE.
“As Minister, I have to argue for more resources for our health service. I have no interest in making things looks any better or worse than they really are,” he said.
