'Treat hospital crisis as urgently as snowy roads' as record 82,000 people on waiting lists

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association has warned the drop in waiting list numbers is 'nowhere near the planned 18% reduction'.

The crisis in hospital care should be treated with the same urgency as the snowy roads, a patient advocate has said as latest data shows a record number of patients facing lengthy delays for treatment.

The call comes as hospital consultants warn Government targets for reducing patient waiting lists by year’s end will be missed by a “significant margin”.

People with hip injuries or women with osteoporosis are among more than one in 10 patients waiting longer than 18 months for orthopaedic care in hospitals. Figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) for November show a total of 10,369 patients on orthopaedic waiting lists.

Overall, the number of people waiting for all kinds of in-patient care has now reached 80,232 — the highest for this year.

These lists include 8,143 children, with more than one in 10 (12%) waiting longer than 18 months for treatment.

The Irish Patients Association has called for delays in patient care to be treated with the same urgency by the Emergency Department Taskforce as the Government has treated the extreme weather this week.

Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients Association said waiting lists were linked to overcrowding in emergency departments as operations are cancelled to make room for urgent cases. “There has been very little progress this year on weighted waiting times,” he said.

The national weather emergency team meets daily during bad weather vs very infrequent meetings [of the taskforce] for the winter emergency department overcrowding. Who is responsible for this?” 

Meanwhile, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association has warned the drop in waiting list numbers is “nowhere near the planned 18% reduction”. The NTPF figures show the three main waiting lists fell from 720,056 at the start of 2022 to 708,590. 

“As consultants, we need and want sustainable solutions to provide care to the 1.1m people awaiting essential diagnostics or treatments in our hospitals," IHCA president Professor Robert Landers said.

"Increases in waiting times for planned procedures can mean patients’ conditions may significantly deteriorate, hampering their quality of life and potentially their future health outcomes." 

The IHCA said the 918 consultant posts either vacant or filled by a locum are the "root cause" of delays for patients. 

The figures also show waiting lists for first out-patient appointments, while falling, still remain  extremely high at 602,832, down from 629,447 in August.