Operating theatres idle as 46,000 await treatment
HOSPITAL theatres are lying idle, leaving surgeons unable to operate on patients as public waiting lists grow, doctors warned yesterday.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said 46,000 patients and children are on waiting lists across the country -- a rise of more than 5,400 (16pc) compared with last year.
It comes against a background of theatre closures in Cork, Mullingar, Dublin, Galway, Letterkenny over the summer while Limerick Regional will only have half its theatres open over the next three months.
The longest waiting lists are in Galway University Hospital, the Mater and Beaumont in Dublin, Cork University Hospital and Waterford Regional.
The doctors' body also blamed bed closures for lengthening lists -- including Beaumont (52), the Mater (60) Cavan General (28) and Limerick Regional (40).
Asked if doctors themselves were contributing to the delays because they were breaching their contracts and not treating an agreed quota of public patients, the organisation's President, Dr Margo Wrigley, insisted specialists were frustrated by the closures.
Consultants, "find it extremely frustrating that a theatre is closed for a period of weeks and they have no operating times", she said.
Figures from the Health Service Executive (HSE) show consultants in several hospitals are not limiting their proportion of private patients they are treating to 20-30pc, although they were paid higher salaries to do so.
However, Secretary General Finbarr Fitzpatrick admitted no disciplinary action has been taken against any specialist. He pointed out that private patients are a source of income for public hospitals .
"It is accepted that 75pc of patients admitted to hospitals come through emergency departments, so the consultant has no control over this. Around half the population still have private health insurance.
"Targets for the numbers of inpatients, day case patients and outpatients have been exceeded this year . . . hospitals receive a significant number of millions of euros a year from private patients and they can exert considerable amount of pressure on consultants to categorise patients as private so bills can be sent out," said Mr Fitzpatrick
The IHCA counts the waiting list figures from the point of referral -- although the National Treatment Purchase Fund said last night it was more accurate to start after someone has been waiting for three months. Waiting times are down, which is the crucial measurement, said a spokesman.
Launching the IHCA's pre- Budget submission, Dr Wrigley said the moratorium on recruitment has left some frontline services decimated.
Describing the health service as "rapidly deteriorating", she said the Government should not impose threatened health cuts promised for next year.
"Over €1bn was taken out of the healthcare budget in 2010. We just do not have the frontline staff and equipment patients need," she warned.
- Eilish O'Regan Health Correspondent
Irish Independent
