Hospitals risk fines for not referring patients to fund

HOSPITALS will be penalised financially for failing to refer patients to the National Treatment Fund (NTPF) for surgery, Health Minister Mary Harney has warned.

She said it was inexcusable that 2,155 people were waiting more than a year for operations when both the capacity and finance needed to treat them was available.

The NTPF has identified five hospitals it says account for over half of the patients waiting longer than a year for surgery.