Paul McGrath
Ceist:9 Mr. McGrath asked the Minister for Health and Children the measures, if any, he proposes to reduce the hospital waiting lists, particularly for hip replacements in the Midland Health Board area.
Ceisteanna – Questions. Priority Questions. - Hospital Waiting Lists.
Since coming into office I have tackled the problem of hospital in-patient waiting lists in a strategic and integrated manner. During the first half of this year waiting lists fell by approximately 8 per cent, which is indicative of the success of the strategic way in which I approached this problem. It should be noted that the reductions this year are the first since December 1996. Waiting lists fell again for the September quarter by a further 1 per cent.
The waiting list for hip replacements in the Midland Health Board at the end of September 1999 was 138. I am pleased to point out that this is a further reduction in the number of people awaiting hip replacement operations on the June 1999 figure of 143.
At the beginning of this year I allocated the Midland Health Board £870,000 under the waiting list initiative for specific waiting list work. The review group on the waiting list initiative recommended that a portion of the funding available for waiting list work should be retained and allocated later in the year to those agencies which performed best under the waiting list initiative. From this incentive funding, I allocated a further £300,000 to the Midland Health Board in August for further waiting list work.
The fall in the waiting list for hip replacement procedures in the Midland Health Board area reflects the additional investment that I have made under the waiting list initiative and the integrated approach I have taken to addressing the issue.
I thank the Minister for his reply. He quoted figures relating to June and September this year. However, he did not go back to the previous year. He said the numbers have fallen, but they have not fallen if one takes the starting figure of 119 in June 1998. In September this year the figure was 138, so therefore there was an increase of about 15 per cent in that period which is quite substantial. Does the Minister agree that the pain and discomfort of people waiting for hip replacements is enormous in terms of immobility, pain and lack of sleep? Many patients awaiting hip operations cannot sleep properly. Some people are waiting up to two years for hip replacement operations in the Midland Health Board area, an area the Minister knows very well. This is totally unacceptable and I ask the Minister to take an initiative to try to reduce the waiting times to a reasonable level. There will be quite a number of operations towards the back end of the year, but I am still told that those longest on the waiting list will probably not have operations at that time. A full review is necessary and I ask the Minister to examine it.
The Minister did not refer to the waiting lists for ENT in that area which are also particularly long. Again people have been waiting for up to two years for treatment in Tullamore hospital. Has the Minister any initiatives in this regard?
I certainly have some initiatives in that regard and would appreciate even more vocal support from the Deputy for the capital development proposed for Tullamore General Hospital which will ensure greater throughput for ENT and orthopaedic services. As the Deputy is aware, Tullamore General Hospital has been designated since 1995 as the region's speciality hospital for those services and has not had the level of capital necessary to meet the requirements of which I and the Deputy regularly speak. When one examines the waiting lists one will find they are far longer for Tullamore General Hospital, because it is the regional hospital for those specialities, than for the hospitals in Long ford-Westmeath or Portlaoise. The waiting list in the hospital in Portlaoise is 109 patients. From memory the waiting list for total procedures in Tullamore General Hospital is more than 1,700. I look forward to the Midland Health Board, Deputies and councillors from the four counties giving full support to the proposed capital investment programme which I have initiated for Tullamore General Hospital to ensure the constituents of the Deputy in Longford-Westmeath and my constituents are provided with a regional speciality which measures up to what is available in other health board areas. One can pick and choose figures from previous dates but I will not refer to the June 1997 or June 1996 figures. We are providing more money for the Midland Health Board area and the Deputy will appreciate, without any special pleading, there has been significant investment in hospital services during my tenure.
I will support the Minister with regard to the capital investment. It is badly needed in the area. Tullamore hospital certainly needed capital investment and I support what the Minister is doing there. I hope there will be such investment in other hospitals also. However, I make a special plea to the Minister to examine the hip replacement waiting list. Some people have to wait almost two years and the Minister will appreciate the pain they go through. Lack of sleep is the major problem of people waiting for hip operations. They cannot sleep or lie still because of the pain.
It will not happen overnight but we should try to reach a stage where hip replacement operations will take place within six months of a patient being put on the waiting list. I urge the Minister to set that as his goal.
I have identified approximately nine target specialties, which include orthopaedics, under the waiting list initiative. This has been of benefit to Tullamore General Hospital in terms of getting more money for the procedures mentioned by the Deputy. There has been a historical backlog in orthopaedic and ENT procedures because the hospital which was designated to carry them out did not get the capital investment necessary to provide the required throughput for regional demand. We are now addressing that problem and it is time we did so. Further work will have to be done in the other two general hospitals as well.