Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 16 Nov 1995

Vol. 458 No. 4

Written Answers. - Hospital Waiting Lists.

Thomas P. Broughan

Question:

49 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Health the amount of time by which the waiting lists for elective and nonelective surgery were reduced between January 1993, January 1995 and to date as a result of the measures introduced by his Department; and if the current waiting lists at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 5 are significantly higher than other hospitals in the Eastern Health Board region. [17108/95]

Minister for Health (Mr. Noonan,

Limerick East): I would like to assure the Deputy that all emergency cases are dealt with immediately. In relation to waiting lists for elective surgery, a waiting list initiative to address the problem of excessive waiting lists has been underway since 1993. Since the waiting list initiative commenced in 1993, £38 million has been provided to tackle the problem of long waiting lists. This has led to major reductions in waiting times for treatment and has reduced considerably the excessive waiting lists which were allowed to build up during the late 1980s.

Emphasis has been placed on providing funding to ensure a reduction in waiting lists where waiting times for adults were in excess of 12 months and, for children, in excess of six months. The specialities of ENT, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, plastic surgery, vascular surgery, general surgery, gynaecology and urology were targeted as needing particular attention.

When the initiative commenced in June 1993 the total in-patient waiting list for all specialities was 40,130. By 31 December 1994 this figure had been reduced to 23,835 which represents a reduction of 16,295 or 40 per cent over a period of 18 months.

In 1995 the Government committed a further £8 million to continue to reduce waiting times in a number of target specialities where waiting times are considered excessive and 10,394 additional in-patient procedures will be carried out as a result of this funding. In addition, the 1995 initiative will also target out-patient waiting lists, where waiting times are excessive and here an additional 6,728 persons at present awaiting an out-patient appointment will be seen.

Waiting times in particular hospitals can vary considerably between specialities and between individual consultants. It is difficult, therefore, to make direct comparisons between one hospital and another. However, every effort is made to ensure that waiting times are reduced to the greatest extent possible in all hospitals and to this end more than £3 million in waiting list initiative funding has been provided to Beaumont Hospital since 1993. In the current year £840,000 has been provided to Beaumont under the waiting list initiative to perform 930 additional procedures which will help to further reduce waiting lists at Beaumont Hospital.