Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

Nearly 40% of acute hospitals will now refer patients who have been waiting more than three months to the national treatment purchase fund. Patients who have been waiting more than six months for treatment can contact the national treatment purchase fund directly or through their general practitioners to arrange treatment. We appeal to people to do that.

While the national treatment purchase fund has the task of dealing with the immediate needs of patients, the increasing capacity of the public hospital system to treat an increasing number of patients is a product of the significant investment by the Government in health services. This year we have provided a gross allocation of €10 billion for the health service which is almost double the level of funding in 1997.

No one can deny that the hospital system is providing more and better services than ever before. Activity in our acute hospitals continues to rise. The reported number of patients on hospital waiting lists must be seen in the context of a continuing increase in the number of people treated in public hospitals. The number of patients discharged from hospital having been treated as either an in-patient or as a day case in 2003 was more than one million. This is the first time the number has exceeded one million and represents a 4.7% increase over 2002. This also represents a 27% increase in the number of patients treated compared with the number in 1997, which was approximately 785,000. The money is being spent on increased activity, procedures and treatments and more people being treated in the system.

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