This article is from page 4 of the 2013-05-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
ALMOST 6,000 patients from across the mid-west, which includes county Clare, have been waiting more than four years for an outpatient appointment. The most serious offender in the region, and country, is the Mid-Western Regional Orthopaedic Hospital in Croom. Here 10,347 outpatients are on waiting lists; 4,109 or 39.7 per cent have been waiting more than four years to be seen by a consultant. According to the Department of Health’s Patient Treatment Register the Mid Western Regional Hospital, in Dooradoyle, Limerick, where most Clare patients are now referred, has the second highest number on a waiting list, with 1,716 outpatients waiting over four years. Nationally, there are now 9,784 patients waiting more than four years for an outpatient consultation in a public hospital, most of whom have been waiting between three and four years for an appointment. The total number of people on outpatient lists, according to the PTR figures for the end of January, is 386,643. The HSE West vowed to reduce this figure significantly back in January, bringing the waiting list in line with the Health Minister James Reilly’s pledge that no patient would be waiting more than a year for an outpatient consultation by the end of 2013. The HSE West claims that they can achieve this by November. The health service has been validating waiting lists to ascertain which patients still need appointments. In October last year 10,970 orthopaedic out patients in the mid-west were waiting for an appointment with a consultant. By May that figure fell to 7,477. “It is our objective to have the entire list validated by the end of May and to have no patient waiting longer than 12 months by the end of November for an outpatient orthopaedic appointment,” it said.