Fund has prioritised hip replacement over cancer, says consultant

THE National Treatment Purchase Fund has resulted in patients on waiting lists with conditions such as cancer being denied treatment in favour of those with non-life threatening conditions such as hernias and joint replacements, a consultant has claimed.

The scheme has created a form of inequality on the waiting lists, according to Midland Health Board consultant Gerard Crotty.

He has suggested the €31 million pledged to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) this year would be better spent in permanent consultant appointments and hospital theatre facilities to assist more needy patients.

The consultant haematologist said: “I’m not saying it’s money totally down the draining, sending patients for once-off operations to private hospitals here or in Britain, but the fund could be better utilised.”

He asserted: “If an individual clinician prioritised patients in this manner, it would be considered unethical.

“It is no less so when practiced by the Government.”

Mr Crotty was reacting to an article in the Irish Examiner which suggested the current hospital waiting list backlog could take 20 years to clear.

“Actually, the reality is worse,” he said.

The number of patients waiting for surgical procedures had increased, while department data had also ignored patients waiting for non-surgical procedures, he claimed. “When hospital beds are closed, the access of patients awaiting admission for medical procedures is reduced.

“Some hospital beds are now being reopened with NTPF money, but these are not available for medical patients so it can be expected that the numbers awaiting medical treatment are increasing faster than those awaiting surgery.”

Mr Crotty said it was disappointing that attempts were being made to “disguise the true situation by misrepresenting ar increase in numbers as a decrease”.

The NTPF fund is a tiny fraction of the 9 billion allocated to health services this year, a significant increase on the 4bn provided in 1997.

Almost 6,000 patients, most on hospital waiting lists for 12 months or more, benefited from the NTPF scheme.

The Department of Health also pointed to a 34% increase in the number of consultants appointed in the last five years.

However, Fine Gael’s Dan Neville said that the Government’s health policies were scandalous.

“It’s almost a denial of a person’s right to life to put a patient with a life-threatening conditions on a waiting list,” the party’s deputy health spokesperson said.

“I’m not suggesting that people requiring a hip or hernia operation should be denied treatment,” he said. “Both are of urgent necessity and I don't see them as mutually exclusive.

“But the waiting lists’ crux highlight the increasing inefficiencies in the health service. Even with the Government pumping more money into the sector, the problems are getting worse.”