Reilly pledge doomed as 8,125 children on hospital list

Health Minister James Reilly’s pledge to end year- long hospital appointment waits by the end of 2013 looks set to fail, after new figures revealed thousands of seriously ill children are still facing the mammoth delays.

Latest Department of Health statistics show that at the end of September, there were 8,125 children with heart, brain, kidney and other problems waiting one to four years for help at two of the country’s leading hospitals.

The rates, recorded at Temple Street and Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin at the end of September, are potentially putting the health of children at serious risk.