By Fiachra Cionnaith

Friday, August 10, 2012

Almost 17,000 people including heart, orthopaedics, kidney, neurology, and cancer patients have been waiting over four years for an initial hospital consultant outpatient appointment.

HSE figures show that, despite repeated ministerial promises to resolve the delays, the long-term treatment backlogs are continuing across a range of vital specialities in the system.

Leading medical website irishhealth.com has revealed that, of the 351,000 people on outpatient lists, 117,000 are still waiting more than a year to be seen for the first time by a hospital consultant.

Of this figure, 16,903 are waiting as long as four years across all hospitals in the country.

This is despite the fact that Health Minister James Reilly is bidding to finally address lengthy waiting times for vital hospital treatment via his special delivery unit team.

While the above delays are lengthy, for patients facing the extensive waits, the queue for accessing care does not end when they are finally seen.

An initial outpatient hospital consultant appointment is generally considered to be a waiting list to get on to a second waiting list for more specialised care.

As such, the actual wait for specialised care is longer than the initial outpatient hospital consultant appointments.

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17,000 waiting over four years to see consultant