Vol. 548 No. 2
237 Dr. O'Hanlon asked the Minister for Health and Children if his attention has been drawn to the delay in providing surgery for cataracts and the difficulties this poses for many elderly people; if he will allocate funding from the special funding on waiting lists for a programme to substantially reduce the waiting time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4348/02]
Considerable progress has been made in reducing waiting times for ophthalmology services. During the period September 2000 to September 2001 the number of adults waiting for ophthalmology services for more than 12 months decreased by 17%. The number of adults on public hospital waiting lists for ophthalmology services in September 2001, the latest date for which figures are available, was 2,978. This figure represents a decrease of 8% on the comparable figure for September 2000. Dedicated funding of €138.5 million was made available to health agencies between 1997 and 2001 to enable hospitals to carry out waiting list procedures and a further €43.8 million is available under the waiting list initiative for 2002.
The new Health Strategy which I launched recently, includes a plan covering the actions required to address the issue of waiting lists and particularly waiting times. The targets set out in the strategy are that by the end of 2002 no adult will wait longer than 12 months and no child will wait longer than six months for treatment, by the end of 2003 no adult will wait longer than six months and no child will wait longer than three months for treatment and by the end of 2004 no public patients will wait longer than three months for treatment. A new dedicated treatment purchase fund will be used for the purpose of purchasing treatments for public patients, either from private hospitals in Ireland or, if necessary, from abroad.
The single most important limiting factor for admission to hospital is bed availability. In this context a comprehensive review of bed capacity needs has been conducted in both the acute and non-acute sectors. I recently announced the commissioning of an additional 709 acute beds in public hospitals at a cost of €65 million. This is the first phase of the provision of an additional 3,000 acute beds over the period to 2011, as announced in the health strategy.
