Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We discussed this on an earlier question. I am not sure if the Deputy was here. As I said, the constraints in carrying out complex surgery depend on a number of things including theatre time being available, theatre nurses being available, an appropriately qualified consultant orthopaedic surgeon being available to carry out the operation and a number of other factors. What is being done is a doubling of the number of surgeries being carried out, if possible. Other hospitals are taking patients. Temple Street, for example, has taken three patients by moving some lists to Saturday working. The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore, London, has been asked to help out and it carried out an out-patient clinic in Crumlin on Friday, 27 November 2015. The clinic had 15 patients and Stanmore accepted 11, five of whom are long waiters. There were two families who decided not to progress with surgery on the basis of second opinions while two will be followed up with out-patient appointments in Crumlin. This accounts for the remaining four long waiters greater than 15 months. The opportunity to send patients to Stanmore with its shorter waiting times allows Crumlin to free up theatre capacity for complex patients.

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