Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the lack of access to women's gynaecology services in Cork University Maternity Hospital, CUMH. Women in the Cork region have drastically longer waiting times for these services than women elsewhere in the country. It is causing devastating consequences for the women and their families in the region served by the Cork University Hospital and CUMH.

I will outline some facts that have been communicated to me. I admit to being quite new to this issue. The matter was referred to me by a consultant gynaecologist and the director of the gynaecology unit at Cork University Maternity Hospital. She told me the gynaecology service for women in Cork has been neglected in the past decade. There are currently 4,058 women waiting for an outpatient appointment. It is the longest waiting list of all gynaecology units nationwide and is increasing by approximately 1,000 per year. It is also three times the size of the Cork University Hospital general surgery outpatient waiting list, with 35% of women waiting over a year for an outpatient appointment and many waiting two to three years.

Many women arrive in emergency rooms in crisis due to long waiting times. I have been told there is a risk of delayed diagnosis of cancers in women who are forced to wait for years for their outpatient assessment, and this is a clinical assessment of that. There are 518 women on a waiting list for surgery, 38% of whom have been waiting at least one year. Cork has the longest waiting list for gynaecological surgeries, being twice that of the Rotunda Hospital, which ranks second.

In the past decade, no new consultant gynaecologist posts have been created in Cork, despite the fact that 26 such posts have been advertised nationwide in a one-year period during 2015 and 2016. Gynaecology theatres in CUMH are functioning at only 40% of their originally intended capacity. CUMH has two fully commissioned, state-of-the-art gynaecology theatres, only one of which is used for surgery and for just four days per week.

I want to distinguish between gynaecology and maternity services. I anticipate that the Minister of State's reply may refer specifically to maternity services. I hope it will not. I refer specifically to gynaecology services and the lack of services for women's health. This is not a call for additional funding. The issue is one of governance and ensuring the HSE makes a greater effort to allow the services to be put in place. I do not believe for a minute that it is due to a lack of funding. It is due to a lack of will.

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