Lack of consultants hurts neurology patients

PATIENTS with brain disorders are still waiting up to two years to see a consultant despite a promise three years ago by the Health Minister to address the shortage of neurologists.

There are just 13 consultants working in the State with an estimated 500,000 people affected by neurological problems, including motor neurone disease, dementia, stroke and epilepsy.

Dr Orla Hardiman, a consultant neurologist at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital, said the ratio was appalling.

“Ireland is pretty much off the scale in comparison with our European colleagues. The next worse off is the UK, where they feel they’re grossly under-resourced even though they have two or three times the number of consultants we have,” Dr Hardiman said.

Dr Hardiman, who is also a medical adviser for patient advocacy group the Neurological Alliance of Ireland, said neurology was under-resourced and there was a shortage of neuropsychologists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists to provide assessments and follow-up care.

“The waiting lists are horribly long and when they finally do see us we have difficulty getting access to the resources they require. In some parts of the country there are no services at all. We’re not providing the service we should be providing,” she said.

Dr Hardiman said Health Minister Micheál Martin had recognised the problem and called for a review three years ago but so far nothing had changed. Patients were still waiting up to two years for a place on one of the seven neurology clinics provided at Beaumont Hospital each week.

“Once patients get to see us they get put on another waiting list to come to hospital. We have 200 patients waiting for admission to hospital and they may wait up to nine months.”

Patients with epilepsy were waiting up to 18 months for an assessment of whether they would benefit from surgery.

Comhairle na nOispideal is investigating the number of consultants needed and a report is due to be published next month.

Meanwhile, the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) said GPs were constantly forced to chase up consultants’ reports on behalf of patients awaiting test results or even in seeking replies to requests for patient referrals. A patient in the Southern Health Board who waited two years for a consultation for a routine problem received no notification until his doctor was told the consultant was retiring. The SHB reply to the patient’s doctor did not indicate if the patient would receive priority treatment when the new consultant was appointed.

ICGP spokesman Dr Brendan O’Shea said GPs were spending a lot of time apologising to patients for failure by consultants and hospitals to keep the patient informed. He added waiting list times were rising again, with one of his patient’s unable to secure an appointment with a consultant neurologist before February 2004.