Almost 700,000 people still on hospital waiting lists

HOSPITAL waiting-list figures continue to skyrocket with 689,700 people now in line for treatment or examination.

New figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) show that the number increased by 4,800 between December and November last year.

Fianna Fáil’s health spokesman Billy Kelleher blasted the figures as ‘absolutely appalling’ and accused Health Minister Simon Harris of taking his ‘eye off the ball’.

Mr Harris defended his record, saying the budget for the NTPF and waiting lists had dramatically increased and that he expects to see good progress in driving down waiting lists moving into the spring.

But Mr Kelleher hit back, saying: ‘138,584 of these patients spent all of 2017 waiting unsuccessfully for an outpatient consultation. And half of these have actually been waiting since the middle of 2016.

‘We should remember too that Leo Varadkar, when he was Minister for Health, promised that no-one would be waiting more than 18 months by the middle of 2015.

‘Minister Harris has clearly taken his eye off the ball as he attempts, and fails, to grapple with Emergency Department trolley crisis.’

Yesterday there were 473 patients waiting on hospital trolleys for a bed to become available, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.