More than 40,000 wait for out-patient appointments in Galway

By SIOBHÃÂN HOLLIMAN THERE are more than 40,000 people listed as waiting for an out-patient appointment at University Hospital and Merlin Park Hospitals in Galway. However top HSE West officials admit that they can't confirm these figures and that a person might appear on the list a number of times, under different hospitals, different consultants and even misspellings of their names. The health authority is in the process of writing to everyone on the list to clarify if they exist and whether or not they are in still in need of an appointment. In the region of 1,500 letters with an offer of an appointment are going out at a time. Galway's public hospitals have already come under fire for failing to meet national targets for in-patient waiting lists. However officials revealed this week that the initial list of close to 10,000 has been reduced by nearly half. 5,524 await in-patient[private] There are 5,524 people waiting for an in-patient or day-case procedure at the Galway hospitals, compared to 9,901 in January. CEO of the Galway-Roscommon Hospitals Group Bill Maher says they are confident that their efforts will result in the backlog being cleared by the end of September and that similar improvements can be made to the out-patient list. One of the key services highlighted by the CEO was orthopaedic surgery which he says has seen a waiting list reduction of 50 per cent since the start of the year and he expects the remaining 350 patients to be treated within the set nine-month time frame. The hospital faces a fine of €25,000 per patient if it fails to meet the nine-month target but the CEO has negotiated some leeway for UHG as it had to start from such a poor position. Chairman of the Regional Health Forum West Cllr Padraig Conneely said the out-patient figure was 'alarming and staggering' and that he was not happy with the progress being made in validating the figure. Mr Maher said it was a figure he was unhappy with also and that reducing the number and the waiting time for out-patient appointments was a priority being addressed. Length is worry He stressed that it wasn't the actual number that concerned him but the length of time a person had to wait for treatment, which he accepted could be a number of years for some cases at present. The CEO has set a target within the hospital group that no patient will have to wait more than 12 months for an out-patient appointment and he hopes that will reduce even further. The forum also heard that patients not turning up for appointments continue to be a problem and that there were 35,000 DNAs (did not attend) last year in Galway. The 40,000 waiting list relates to new patients and there are more people waiting for follow-up appointments. Mr Maher said while unnecessary follow-up appointments will be focused on, the real challenge will be to increase capacity at out-patient clinics over the coming months while juggling with the other waiting lists in other areas. 'We want to offer patients a realistic appointment time and see if they still need that appointment. We've set our own target of a patient not having to wait no longer than 12 months,' said Mr Maher. Regional Director John Hennessy again stressed that it was how long a person was waiting for an appointment that was really concerning as opposed to how many were waiting. The Galway hospital sees at least 5,000 out-patients each week and the numbers didn't frighten him, he said, and added that it was not acceptable for people to wait more than a year to be seen. Cllr Conneely said he had been told stories of people having to wait many years for an appointment and he didn't know how much more pain and suffering they could put up with. Of the 40,000 out-patients waiting to be seen, 7,000 of these are orthopaedic patients, which he was unhappy about. Mr Maher said that they were availing of capacity across the hospital group and using space available in Ballinasloe and Roscommon hospitals to reduce the burden on UHG. 'There's no magic formula. We're working hard to maximise capacity and efficiency,' he said. The health authority would only outsource a patient as a last resort as it made no financial sense to do so. John Hennessy said they aim to see and treat patients within their own hospital group. Cllr Mary Hoade welcomed the significant reduction in the in-patient waiting numbers but raised concern regarding the summer months when theatre closures and staff shortages could put extra pressure on resources.[/private]