This article is from page 20 of the 2013-03-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 20 JPG
AN 11-YEAR wait for dermatology services in the mid-west region is to be a thing of the past, according to the HSE, as it begins a major drive to eliminate waiting lists.
Health authorities say they hope that, by next November, no patient will be waiting longer than 12 months for an outpatient appointment.
The longest individual wait for dermatology services in the mid-west area, which includes Clare, went back to 2002, but this case was minor and has since been resolved, according to a HSE spokesperson.
Extra clinics are now being provided in Ennis, Limerick and Nenagh to eliminate the 1, 500 patients currently on the list.
A validation exercise was recently carried out to establish the real numbers of those actually requiring an appointment and it was found that just 386 patients out of the 1,767 were waiting less than one year.
Medicine Directorate manager for the Mid Western Hospitals Group, Paula Cussen Murphy said, “The people of the mid-west are very fortunate to have secured two additional consultant dermatologists in the last while. The dermatology service is now being developed to provide a range of services across the region.”
Consultant dermatologist, Dr Bart Ramsey said, “Real progress has and is being made. There is a need to expand the dermatology nursing services to enable more patients to be seen and treated.
“An expanded dedicated space for dermatology is in building development. This will give us much needed physical space to see and treat more patients,” he added.