Govt fails to meet waiting list pledge

The Government today admitted it had failed to honour a 2002 election pledge to clear all hospital waiting lists within two years.

Health Minister Micháel Martin said the issue was not whether there were waiting lists but how long patients were forced to wait.

Mr Martin said: “There will always be waiting lists as long as people are sick, the issue for you, me and for people who are sick is how long they wait.

“The story is that we are making progress in this country despite a lot of propaganda that we are not, but we would like to be ahead of the game.

“Clearly we’re behind targets on that but if you don’t set targets then you don’t achieve a lot in life.”

The Government said that the true waiting lists figure showed 80% of patients were now waiting less than a year for surgical treatment.

Figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) reported that 37% of patients were waiting between three and six months, and 43% between six and twelve months for surgery.

Mr Martin said: “Much progress has been made to get the waiting times down and we are on track to achieve the health strategy targets.

“The transfer of responsibility for waiting list figures to the NTPF will result in a more accurate and complete picture of the numbers waiting and more importantly the length of time they are waiting for their procedures.

“The important issue is that patients wait for treatment for the shortest possible time and that the actual list tells us correctly how many patients are available for treatment.”

Government figures showed 19,591 patients were waiting more than three months for treatment and this fell short of specified targets.

Figures also showed that 3,560 patients had been waiting more than a year for treatment.

The Labour party accused the Government of “failing utterly” to fulfil an election pledge to clear all hospital waiting lists within two years.

Deputy Labour party leader and spokesperson on health, Liz McManus TD said figures showed that, far from being cleared, more than 27,000 people were still awaiting treatment.

Mr Martin said that the figure of 27,000 overstated the number of people available for treatment.

Ms McManus said: “We are here to make the point to the Government that they have reneged totally on people who are waiting on hospital waiting lists who were promised there will be nobody left waiting by this week,” she said.

Fianna Fáil made the commitment during the course of their General Election campaign in May 2002.

Ms McManus added: “Instead we have over 27,000 patients waiting to access the care that they need.

“These people are sick, they are suffering, they are in pain, quite often they are elderly people.

“They were made a solemn promise by the Taoiseach of this country and it turned out to be a false, bogus promise.”

She claimed the Government won the election on the basis of such commitments.

“We want to remind them that we haven’t forgotten about these people and we are going to fight their cause,” she added.

“Clearing hospital waiting lists needs real action.”

To mark the launch of the party’s campaign to highlight the issue, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte joined Ms McManus to unveil a specially designed banner reading “27,212 still waiting two years on” outside government buildings.