Vol. 401 No. 1
108 Mr. Nealon asked the Minister for Health if he will outline (a) the number of people on the waiting list for orthopaedic treatment in the North-Western Health Board area (b) the average waiting time for treatment and (c) if he will provide extra funds to help deal with the problem.
There are currently 275 patients awaiting admission for orthopaedic surgery in the North-Western Health Board area. In order to ensure that emergency and urgent cases can be dealt with promptly, patients' positions on the waiting list are kept under review and are subject to change. The precise length of time an individual patient remains on the waiting list depends, therefore, on the urgency of his or her case. The board advise me that they will take around five months to clear their orthopaedic waiting list. As two new consultant orthopaedic surgeons are to be appointed shortly, an early decrease on this waiting list may be expected.
