Patients taken off waiting list due to ‘administrative error’

Hundreds of people with potentially serious health conditions whose hospital appointments have been delayed for more than a year were accidentally wiped off a waiting list due to a HSE “administrative error”.

The HSE has confirmed the situation occurred at St Columcille’s Hospital in Loughlinstown, Dublin, late last year — just in time to bring the facility into line with Health Minister James Reilly’s much publicised waiting list cutback targets.

The mystery mistake, which has been corrected, involves 350 people waiting over a year for an outpatient appointment at the hospital’s public obesity clinic.