Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I highlight this issue because it is ongoing in the south east. It is appropriate to focus on it because it gives us an indication of what is wrong with our health service from a medical and financial perspective. Patients in Dublin currently wait approximately two years to see an orthopaedic surgeon but a patient in the south east can be waiting up to four years for a routine appointment to attend an orthopaedic surgeon. If a general practitioner marks a patient's case as urgent it will often be a year before that urgent case is seen by an orthopaedic consultant. This problem has been ongoing for years and it is no longer acceptable. Patients and their general practitioners have no idea how long they will be waiting to see an orthopaedic consultant. This appears to be a problem across all specialties, and part of my question to the Minister is whether he will publish data from the special delivery unit on the number of people waiting for consultant appointments in all specialties in the south east. It might help doctors referring patients if they knew how long people would have to wait because a hospital or a consultant with a shorter waiting time could be identified and the patient referred directly to that hospital or consultant.

I am also concerned about what we are hearing about the reorganisation of the service in the south east, as it will not tackle the major problem. The retention of catchment areas will continue to support the inequality and inefficiencies in our health services. That inequality sees patients in one part of the country waiting two years to see an orthopaedic consultant while patients in another part wait four years. The problem was supposed to have been ironed out with the establishment of the HSE, yet there has been no significant change to the status quo. The stated policy of our Government that money should follow the patient would help to reduce that inequality, but I would like to know whether that forms part of the remit of Professor John Higgins in reorganising the health services not just in the south east but across the country. Will we see money following the patient, and will it have an impact on waiting times? If that was the case it would at least reduce the inequality and we would see people being treated equally across the country in the future. I ask the Minister of State to address those questions.

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