Brendan Kenneally (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Question 347: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if the waiting list for the National Treatment Purchase Fund is three months; if so, the reason a person (details supplied) in County Donegal is being told they will have to wait for nine months; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48004/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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The primary remit of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) is to offer surgical procedures to public patients who have been waiting longest for surgery. Once a person is longer than three months waiting, he or she may be eligible for treatment through the Fund. The NTPF currently maintains a particular focus on those persons who are waiting longer than 12 months for surgical procedures. Depending on progress made in individual hospitals, patients who have been waiting for six months and, in some cases, three months, are currently being offered treatment.

At the beginning of 2008, there were 960 patients waiting over 12 months for surgery in Letterkenny General Hospital. In view of this excessively high number, the NTPF last year requested the hospital to refer those persons waiting longest to the Fund first. The latest returns from Letterkenny Hospital (December 2008) to the NTPF show that there are still approximately 200 waiting over 12 months for surgery. I welcome this significant progress and look forward to the elimination of such excessive waiting times during 2009.

In relation to the specific case raised by the Deputy, the child in question has been on the Letterkenny General Hospital waiting list since June 2008. I understand that, subsequent to the child's parents contacting the NTPF, the Fund has arranged a pre-operative review for him for 5 February 2009 in the North West Independent Hospital, Derry.