PUBLIC PATIENTS can be waiting up to a year and a half for crucial tests to determine if they are suffering from conditions such as bowel cancer, according to new figures. Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent, reports.
The data, obtained by The Irish Times, shows patients can wait up to months for a colonoscopy examination at Portlaoise General Hospital, up to 12 months for the test at Tullamore General Hospital or University College Hospital Galway, and up nine months at Limerick Regional Hospital or Kerry General Hospital.
Waiting times can be up to eight months at Wexford General Hospital and St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny, while patients can wait up to six months at Naas General Hospital and Dublin's Mater hospital.
The hospitals say that patients marked as in urgent need of the internal bowel examination by their referring GP are seen much faster - within a matter of days or weeks - and that only those who are classed routine referrals have to wait for long periods.
However, a woman who attended her family doctor last November and who was referred to the Mater hospital for a colonoscopy, has told this newspaper she won't be seen for the examination until April, some five months after first presenting to her doctor, even though her symptoms include bleeding from her back passage, which would suggest her case could be urgent.
The revelation of these latest waiting times will be an embarrassment to the Government, which promised last year to make every effort to ensure cases like that of Kilkenny woman Susie Long were not allowed to recur.
Ms Long had her bowel cancer diagnosis delayed after having to wait seven months for a colonoscopy. She died last October, but not before highlighting the injustices in a two-tier health system that saw her having to wait months for a vital test because she was a public patient, while a patient she knew with private health insurance was scheduled for the diagnostic test within three days.
The Health Service Executive said hospitals were working closely with the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to cut waiting times. It also said waiting lists were being checked to see if those who were named as waiting longest still in fact required a colonoscopy.
"If the procedure is still required, then patients can be assessed for eligibility for NTPF," it said. The NTPF can buy treatment in private hospitals for public patients on a waiting list for more than three months.
Health insurance industry sources have said a public patient who does not have insurance and who wants to be seen faster privately would probably pay about €4,300 for a colonoscopy.
Meanwhile, the HSE suggested because waiting list figures supplied by its hospitals hadn't been validated, they should be treated with "caution".
Furthermore, it said patients classed as in urgent need of a colonoscopy were "usually seen in less than five weeks across the HSE areas".
The difficulty, however, is for GPs to know when patients should be classed as urgent. Dr Martin Daly, chairman of the GP committee of the Irish Medical Organisation, said if a patient had very clear symptoms, such as passing blood, an experienced family doctor would advocate that they be seen immediately for a colonoscopy, and in most such cases they would be seen rapidly.
"However the problem is that many symptoms of bowel disease can be quite subtle, especially in the early stages of cancer, at a time when you want to pick up cases so you have the greatest chances of effecting a complete cure . . . and with the best will in the world, if the symptoms are subtle there is an increased risk of people who have early signs of cancer falling through the net," he said.
Prof Tom Keane, interim director of the State's cancer control programme, acknowledged the difficulty facing GPs at a recent appearance before the Oireachtas health committee when he said: "There is a mechanism in place for an urgent referral through general practitioners, but it depends on the GP identifying the patient . . . as someone who is at a higher risk than someone with minor symptoms who is looking for a colonoscopy to be reassured."