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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 May 2001

Vol. 537 No. 3

Written Answers. - Hospital Waiting Lists.

Gay Mitchell

Question:

166 Mr. G. Mitchell asked the Minister for Health and Children when the hospital waiting lists for public patients will be cleared. [16286/01]

It is the nature of health care systems that not all treatments can be made available to patients immediately because of the demands that arise in some specialities.

There were more than 870,000 patients discharged by the hospital system in the year 2000. Waiting list numbers account for less than 4% of overall hospital discharges and the vast bulk of hospital work is carried out on patients who are waiting less than three months for inpatient or day case procedures.

The waiting list initiative was introduced in June 1993 to address the issue of hospital waiting lists. Since then dedicated funding has been made available to health agencies to enable them to reduce waiting lists as much as possible and to bring waiting times to within reasonable limits.

The overall target for waiting list initiative funding is to ensure that no adult waits longer than 12 months and that no child waits longer than six months for treatment.

The overall hospital waiting list figure at the 31 December 2000 was 27,857. This figure represents a 25% drop on the figure at 31 December 1999. It is my intention to pursue continual reductions in waiting lists and waiting times for hospital treatment in 2001 and I have made £34.5 million available to health agencies under the waiting list initiative this year. In the last three years alone this Government has made nearly £80 million available to health agencies to continue to reduce waiting lists and, very importantly, waiting times.

A national review of bed capacity in both the acute and non-acute settings is being conducted by my Department in conjunction with the Department of Finance and in consultation with the social partners. I presented the interim findings of the review to Government last year and identified a range of immediate investment proposals aimed at addressing identified difficulties. The bed capacity report is now at an advanced stage and the findings will be brought to Government in the near future.

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