Three-month wait for urgent bowel cancer checks

ALMOST two out of every three public patients sent to a leading hospital for urgent bowel cancer checks are waiting up to three months for treatment — despite a 28-day target being imposed by the HSE.

Figures revealed in the health service’s latest HealthStat update show that a significant number of potentially seriously ill patients are waiting longer than they should at Tallaght Hospital.

The issue specifically relates to people with possible signs of bowel cancer which, while potentially fatal, can be treated if detected at an early stage.

According to the HSE statistics for the end of December, detailed by www.irishhealth.com, the vast majority of public hospitals — 98% — are seeing these urgent patients within the HSE’s own 28-day colonoscopy timeframe.

However, despite this achievement, Tallaght Hospital in Dublin is failing to meet the four-week appointment wait goal, with 24 of their 40 “urgent” patients waiting between one and three months for the potentially life-saving test.

The situation has been confirmed in the HSE’s latest HealthStat figures, resulting in a “red light” unsatisfactory rating for the public facility and leading to calls for immediate action to address the issue.

A national bowel cancer screening programme is due to be introduced across the country next year.

Among the other details that are highlighted in the latest HSE figures is the fact that a number of hospitals are still failing to address growing waiting times for routine outpatient appointments.

A public patient can currently expect to wait more than a year for a surgical appointment at an outpatient clinic in Galway University Hospital (GUH), while those requiring an ear, nose and throat (ENT) appointment at the same facility must wait almost 36 months.

At Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, the average wait for a similar appointment is over two-and-a half years.

The HSE’s official average maximum waiting time target for outpatient appointments is three months.

However, the figures indicate that just under half of hospitals are complying with this target in surgery and less than one-third are compliant with the three-month target for outpatient appointments in medicine.