Vol. 385 No. 2
asked the Minister for Health the total number of patients on waiting lists for in-patient and out-patient services in the country; the way in which these figures compare with two years ago; and if he has any general or specific proposals to deal with this problem.
39.
asked the Minister for Health if he will make a statement giving the latest figures for hospital waiting lists for operations in the Dublin area; and if he will make as statement on the significance of same.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 62 and 39 together. Comprehensive detailed information along the lines requested by the Deputy has not been available on a routine basis for all specialties to my Department in the past. The practice has been to monitor waiting lists only in respect of specialties where there was known to be a particular problem in relation to service provision. These include orthopaedics, cardiac surgery and ophthalmology. The information available in relation to these specialities does not indicate any overall increase in the number on their waiting lists.
Similarly, the general information available to my Department from ongoing and regular contact with hospitals does not suggest a significant increase in the number on waiting lists. Where increases have occurred they tend to be where new procedures or treatments are developed but available facilities have not expanded sufficiently to provide a comprehensive service immediately.
Health boards have been notified of their non-capital revenue allocation for 1989 last week and the voluntary hospitals will be advised of their allocations within a few days. Officials of my Department will be meeting with health board and hospital managements to discuss their plans for containing expenditure within allocation. Hospitals will be asked to re-examine priorities and where long waiting lists exist to make efforts to ensure that unnecessary delays in treating patients do not occur.
Hospital management and medical staff have been encouraged to be innovative in their approach to the delivery of services to the public. Increased emphasis on the use of day medical and surgical techniques in hospitals has resulted in increased patient throughput leaving more beds available for those treatments which still require in-patient facilities.
I want to remind Deputies that there are five questions nominated for priority to be disposed of within the prescribed time, which is 3.45 p.m. I need the co-operation of the Deputies so that I may deal with the five questions. Therefore, brevity is of the essence.
I understand what you have said, a Cheann Comhairle. Would the Minister not agree that the problem of waiting lists is the most serious hardship suffered by patients, that there is a three-year waiting period for orthopaedic hip operations for some 8,000 public patients and there can be up to a two and a half year waiting period for certain cardiac procedures? These waiting lists are unprecedented and if one looks at the annual report of the Mater Public Hospital one can see that they are carrying out fewer cardiac procedures than in previous years.
As I have already stated this afternoon, I accept that there are long waiting lists for some procedures, one of them being the orthopaedic hip replacement operations referred to by Deputy Yates. This problem has existed for a number of years and is not something new which has developed. We are addressing that problem in the Dublin area, in conjunction with The Arthritis Foundation of Ireland, through the provision of two extra theatres in Cappagh Orthopaedic Hospital.
Because of the backlog in a number of cases would the Minister consider issuing in 1989 contract allocations to specific hospitals to clear certain waiting lists? As the Minister knows, contract allocations for specific levels of work have already been undertaken in other countries.
As I have already said in reply to the question, we do not have detailed waiting lists for specific hospitals nor indeed for specific procedures. It is very hard to get accurate information on waiting lists because there can be patients presenting for the first time, patients coming back for return visits, patients who have received in-patient treatment returning to out-patient clinics for followup treatment, patients who have already been seen at out-patient clinics called back for further investigation perhaps to other clinics, patients on more than one consultant's list and on the waiting lists of a number of hospitals and the waiting lists of a number of consultants in the same hospital for the same procedure. It is very difficult to get accurate information on waiting lists. I monitor very carefully what is happening. I accept that there are delays for certain specific procedures but we are trying to address these problems.
