O’Keeffe slams ‘shameful’ waiting list for orthodontics
RECENTLY released figures showing that more than 2,500 people are currently awaiting orthodontic treatment in the HSE’s southern area of operations have been branded as a “shameful indictment” of government health policy by a Cork Fianna Fail TD.
Cork East TD Kevin O’Keeffe obtained the figures on foot of a parliamentary question to Health Minister Simon Harris by his party colleague Stephen Donnelly TD
They showed that 2,531 people were currently awaiting treatment in the South Local Health Office (LHO), which covers Cork and Kerry, at the end of June.
However, Deputy O’Keeffe said the “real scandal” was that almost a quarter of those on the list had been waiting for more than two years to see an orthodontist.
“It is a disgrace that 626 people in Cork and Kerry who have been diagnosed as being in need of treatment have been forced to wait two years, and in some cases even longer, just to start that treatment,” said Deputy O’Keeffe.
“Its very telling that we are talking about waiting times in terms of years and not months, which should be the norm. It is a shameful indictment of Government policy and I don’t get a sense that the HSE has a plan to end this scandal.”
Deputy O’Keeffe said the fact that 18,135 people across the country were on orthodontic treatment waiting lists, 7,572 for more than two years, was indicative of the manner in which Government had neglected the wider health system.
He said the problem of lengthening waiting lists was not just confined to orthodontics, with unacceptable waiting times to see specialists across a number of health disciplines.
“The last six years of Fine Gael-led governments have seen all progress on health made under previous Fianna Fail administrations lost, with waiting lists for almost all specialities increasing, along with average wait times,” said Deputy O’Keeffe.
“While limited progress has been made in terms of reducing waiting lists as a result of Fianna Fails’ insistence on restarting the National Treatment Purchase Fund, the pace of progress has been all too pitifully slow,” he concluded.