PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE:SOME PUBLIC patients are still waiting more than two years for surgery at hospitals across the State, the chief executive of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) confirmed yesterday.
When questioned at a meeting of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, Pat O'Byrne said he could not give precise figures for the numbers of patients waiting that long for surgery, but he agreed it would be over 100.
He presented the latest data on waiting lists, compiled by the NTPF, to the committee, showing more than 2,000 patients are this month waiting over a year for surgery. The hospitals with most patients waiting over a year are Letterkenny General Hospital and Sligo General Hospital.
Brendan Kenneally, a Fianna Fáil TD for Waterford, said he was amazed at the numbers still on the list in excess of 12 months. He asked why there were so many long waiters in the northwest.
Mr O'Byrne said the reason people were waiting over 12 months in some places was the hospitals were not referring enough patients to the NTPF.
Data supplied by the NTPF to the committee indicates more than 16,000 patients are waiting more than three months for surgery. Some 8,623 of these are waiting over six months and over 2,000 are waiting over 12 months.
Figures for total numbers waiting supplied by the HSE are higher than this because they also include the numbers of patients waiting up to three months for surgery. The NTPF will only arrange treatment in private hospitals for public patients once they have been more than three months on a waiting list.
The latest HSE figures indicated that at the end of March, there were 40,781 patients on waiting lists for in-patient and day case treatment. The NTPF's latest figures confirm that targets set in the 2001 national health strategy that no patient would have to wait more than three months for treatment by the end of 2004 have not been met. Mr O'Byrne pointed out however that "the average median wait time" for a procedure is now 3.2 months, a significant improvement on the situation in 2002 when the fund was established. At that time, waiting times of two to five years were common, he said.
He added that as a matter of policy, no more than 10 per cent of NTPF patients end up being treated privately in public hospitals. The committee has asked the NTPF to supply data to support this. It has also asked the NTPF to supply data to the committee on the number of consultants who end up referring patients on their own public waiting lists to be seen privately by themselves under the NTPF, which would see them being paid twice for the same patients.
Mr O'Byrne undertook to provide this data but stressed this would only happen in a small number of cases where it was deemed necessary for the patient to be seen by the same specialist.