There is a crisis in the orthodontic treatment services in St. Finbarr's hospital in Cork. I have tabled a number of questions on this matter in recent months. On 14 October 1997 the Department of Health and Children informed me there were 4,900 people awaiting assessment and 2,200 awaiting treatment, a total of 7,100. On 3 February, four months later the numbers had gone up dramatically from 4,900 to 5,915 awaiting assessment and from 2,200 to 2,432 awaiting treatment, an increase of 1,247 in four months. There are now more than 8,000 children awaiting orthodontic treatment in St. Finbarr's Hospital in Cork and the number is growing. The Department has made resources available to the health board and the health board is in the process of appointing a senior registrar. It had major problems recruiting a registrar and is now trying to appoint a dental surgeon instead. However, that will only serve to keep up with the increased numbers because a senior registrar will have to look after up to 250 children per month just to keep up with the acceleration I have just outlined.
At this point I praise the staff at the clinic in Cork who are doing an outstanding job. Any time I contacted them they were more than gracious and more than helpful. I also thank the Minister and staff of the Department for being so helpful and courteous in making the figures available to me. However, the situation must be addressed. Children are having to wait four or five years for treatment. That means a child of ten will be 14 or 15 before receiving treatment. Worse, 211 of these children were told, having waited an average of two years, that they could not be treated because the Department of Health and Children had issued guidelines to the effect that they were now ineligible and would have to get the work done privately at a cost of, perhaps, £3,000. This is not good enough. We cannot treat children like this, because children of 13 or 14 can be sensitive about their appearance. We heard much talk in the House about suicide in the last while. I am not suggesting for a moment that having teeth out of line could lead to suicide. However, it does not help self-esteem. In addition after two or three years the cost of treatment goes up, and it will cost the State even more in the long-term to treat this problem. It will also be more painful for the children concerned because they will be older. Hardly a week goes by that I do not receive representations of some sort on this matter. The Minister needs to take urgent action to deal with the problem. The measures suggested at the moment will barely serve to keep up with the rising numbers and will not serve to deal with the extremely long waiting list.
I thank the Minister for coming here tonight. I hope he will have something constructive and imaginative to say and he will not read from a prepared script and send us home none the wiser.
