Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Last week, I was contacted by a man who has been two years on a waiting list for spinal surgery and is in intense pain. He recently received a letter from St. Vincent's hospital, stating it was no longer in a position to offer appointments in the orthopaedic department for spinal review and, therefore, his referral would be returned to his referring doctor with a view to that doctor securing a spinal appointment for the man in another hospital. This is the reality of the so-called increased allocations, as against the actuality of waiting lists getting longer and being told to go back to the start while suffering chronic pain. The evidence on the ground, despite the game of statistics and so on, is that the situation gets worse because the allocations are not sufficient to meet increased demands. We get overruns, which next year's new allocation will just about cover, never mind dealing with backlogs or the need for increased services in several areas.

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