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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 23 Jun 1998

Vol. 492 No. 7

Written Answers. - Hospital Waiting Lists.

John Perry

Question:

206 Mr. Perry asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will intervene for a person (details supplied) in County Leitrim and have him immediately called for his angiogram in view of the fact that he has suffered a heart attack and is a married man with four young children; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14784/98]

The provision of medical treatment for eligible persons in County Leitrim is the statutory responsibility of the North-Western Health Board. I have asked the chief executive officer of the North-Western Health Board to investigate this matter and to report directly to the Deputy as a matter of urgency.

Michael Ring

Question:

207 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Health and Children whether a person (details supplied) in County Mayo can be called for an operation involving a replacement valve in his heart before October 1998. [14785/98]

The provision of medical treatment in this instance is the statutory responsibility of the Mater Hospital. I have asked the chief executive officer of the hospital to investigate the position in relation to this case and to reply to the Deputy directly.

Richard Bruton

Question:

208 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will give details of the waiting list for different cardiac procedures; the scale of activity for these procedures in 1997; if he can project, based on the allocation of additional funds for the cardiac waiting list, the extent to which there will be change in these activity levels over the course of 1998; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14786/98]

Cardiac surgery in the public health sector is currently carried out at three centres. Adult cardiac surgery is performed at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital and Cork University Hospital. Paediatric cardiac surgery is performed at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin. In 1997 the Mater Hospital and Cork University Hospital were funded to perform a total of 1,400 adult cardiac surgery procedures and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children was funded to perform 260 paediatric cardiac surgery procedures.

Public patient waiting list statistics are collected by hospitals and furnished to my Department on a quarterly basis. At the end of December 1997, the most recent period for which information is available, there were 1,371 patients awaiting cardiac surgery.

As I stated in my reply to questions in this House on 16 June 1998, my Department allocated a sum of £1.7 million in 1997 under the waiting list initiative with the specific aim of reducing the national cardiac surgery waiting list for adults and children. A combination of approaches was used by hospitals to achieve this objective. As well as purchasing additional cardiac surgery procedures, patients were also reassessed with a view to using alternative therapies such as interventional cardiology or medical treatment, as clinically appropriate. I am pleased to say that this initiative was very successful in reducing the adult waiting list by 203 between September 1997 and December 1997.

This year, a sum of £3 million is being made available specifically for cardiac surgery patients. As in 1997, the aim will be to reduce the overall numbers waiting for cardiac surgery and it is expected that the successful strategy applied in 1997 will be adopted again. Final decisions on the allocation of the cardiac initiative funding will be announced shortly and I am confident that this will have a positive impact on both the overall numbers waiting and the average waiting times. However, I am not in a position to be definite about year end fugures, given the difficulty in predicting with accuracy how demand will evolve over the course of the year.

With regard to the development of cardiovascular services generally, the Deputy will be aware that on 29 January 1998 I announced a comprehensive package of proposals aimed at reducing mortality from cardiovascular disease, with a particular emphasis on premature mortality. Included in this was approval for the development of additional adult public cardiac surgery facilities at St. James's Hospital, Dublin, and University College Hospital, Galway, with the capacity to carry out an additional 750 cardiac surgery procedures per annum. The development of these facilities over the next couple of years should result in a significant reduction in the numbers of patients waiting for cardiac surgery. More importantly, my aim is to ensure that over the next three or four years as a result of this substantial infrastructural development and cardiac surgery waiting list initiative funding the average waiting time for cardiac surgery will be reduced to six months.
Finally, having approved these developments in surgical capacity, I propose to address the wider issues surrounding cardiovascular disease, prevention and treatment when I receive the report of the Cardiovascular Health Strategy Group which I established in March of this year. The group has been asked to report to me by the end of the summer of 1998.
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