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Updated 6.39pm
MINISTER FOR HEALTH Simon Harris has announced that a new operating theatre for the treatment of scoliosis is to open at Crumlin Children’s Hospital in April.
Speaking in the Dáil this evening, Harris said he was “pleased to announce” the opening. The announcement has come as an RTÉ Investigates programme claimed that patient waiting lists around the country are far larger than official estimates suggested.
The new theatre is to carry out 194 spinal operations, a significant increase on last year according to Harris.
The Minister also said that children on waiting lists must be treated within the scheduled wait time or have their case outsourced to private clinics for treatment.
He added that a HSE action plan on scoliosis is now to be delivered by the end of the month.
While the new theatre may be set to open, an older theatre closing means that capacity will not necessarily be greatly enhanced.
The HSE previously told TheJournal.ie that Crumlin hospital commenced using the new theatre in November 2016 “to enable training with new equipment and also to facilitate spinal surgery in the most up-to-date environment”.
Recruitment of nursing staff continues and until all staff are in place this theatre will not provide additional capacity.
A new orthopaedic surgeon hire is now set to be in place for the end of June, according to Harris.
Last night’s programme showcased how thousands of patients waiting for appointments and procedures in Irish hospitals are not included in the official waiting list figures.
The total number of people waiting on the inpatient/day case waiting list as published by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) on the 30 December 2016 was 81,015.
However, RTÉ Investigates uncovered evidence that shows there are at least two other significant waiting lists which are not published by the NTPF.
Speaking on Claire Byrne Live following the show, Health Minister Simon Harris defended the waiting list figures and rejected the idea that the government was not being open and fair on the issue.
He did say, however, that he was “ashamed” and “heartbroken” at the number of people waiting for treatment.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dáil today that Harris will speak to the heads of the Health Service Executive and the National Treatment Purchase Fund about the disclosure that many more patients were on the list than was first thought.
“I found it difficult to watch,” said Kenny, speaking about last night’s programme.
He outlined, that as of 31 January, there were 193 patients awaiting spinal procedures in Crumlin Children’s Hospital, of which 143 were for new spinal fusions.
On average there are additional 250 patients every year, he said.
He said the children’s hospital group confirmed there were 133 spinal fusions for scoliosis conducted in 2016, of which 44 were carried out by the private sector.
Waiting lists
The RTÉ programme delved into the personal stories of patients who have remained on waiting lists for a long period of time.
One of those on a waiting list is 13-year-old Megan who suffers from scoliosis, and her spinal curvature means she now finds it almost impossible to attend school.
Megan described how she can feel sick with the pain and the programme revealed how she is forced to endure it while waiting for her surgery. Megan said, “I’m just sick of this stupid thing.”
Her mother said: “All she needs is her surgery and this will go away and she can start her life again and she’s not having her surgery, she doesn’t have a date. We’re still in limbo.”
The programme had a look at the numbers, which shows an extra 80,000 people on waiting lists that are not published by the State.
This included 22,927 on the Pre-Admit list, which details patients from across the country waiting up to 18 months on surgical procedures.
A further 59,843 patients on the Pre-Planned list which details patients who require follow-up treatment such as surgical-pin removal, cataract removal, hip replacement or even corrective spinal surgery.
People on this list can be waiting anywhere between six weeks to a year.
Simon Harris
Aired immediately after the programme, Simon Harris was interviewed on RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live and defended the waiting list figures released by the government.
He said: “[Long waiting times] shouldn’t be happening. Having said that, we produce waiting list figures in this country every month.”
“They show, and they’re not produced by my department, the government or the HSE, they are produced by the national treatment purchase fund. They show how many people are waiting.” Byrne then drew his attention to the other, unpublished lists.
“But do they really?” Claire Byrne asked. “We have the official waiting list, and the pre-admit list and the pre-planned list.
There are over 80,000 people on these lists. They aren’t published, are they?
Harris didn’t respond directly but said: “Yes, they are additional, but I think you need to be careful how they are described. My understanding is that there are two types of people in those categories.
The first are people who have had procedures scheduled. These are people who finally get the phone call and now have a procedure booked. Secondly, there is a category of people who aren’t clinically able to go to the next stage of their procedure.
Byrne then asked: “Should we not, in the interests of fairness and openness, tell people in Ireland, rather than an RTÉ investigations unit going to find out, that these lists exist.
“I don’t think that is a fair categorisation,” the Health Minister replied. “Waiting lists are published monthly. They are audited. The NTPF follow international standards.
I don’t, by the way, dispute the figures. What I am saying is they do tell us something different.
He said that for people who have been contacted by a hospital and given an appointment within six weeks for their procedure, “that is very different”.
A HSE statement on the matter apologised to patients and said that it was “unacceptable that any patient in our care, particularly patients suffering and in pain should experience any difficulty in making contact with our hospitals”.
The HSE added that it will aim to ensure that no one is waiting longer than 18 months by the end of June this year.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Fianna Fáil Health spokesperson Billy Kelleher said we “simply don’t have the capacity” to meet demand in our hospitals. He also said hospital facilities were not being used efficiently.
Róisín Shortall also called for end to this “shameful scandal”.
Roisin Shortall / TwitterShocking denial of people's human rights to critical healthcare. We must end this shameful scandal! #RTEInvestigates
— Róisín Shortall (@RoisinShortall) February 6, 2017
The Taoiseach told the Dáil today that the scoliosis issue “is an absolute priority”.
He said more will be done, adding that the private sector will “assist with this”.
“The opening of a brand new theatre [at Crumlin Children's Hospital] is dependent upon the recruitment of adequately trained staff and, believe me, the efforts that are going on to have staff who are qualified to do this work are exceptional,” said Kenny.
Kenny said Minister Harris has called in the CEO of Crumlin Children’s Hospital to ask why an operating theatre has not been opened.
“This is an issue that the minister himself was upset about,” said the Taoiseach.
Additional reporting Cianan Brennan
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Global? Start at home first.
This government needs to do more to support the largest employer in Ireland, SME’s.
Great country if you are Google etc. God help anyone looking to run their own business tho!
Large players like Google actually distort the market here, welcome as they are.
You have mid level managers thinking 80k is their right, not something that is unheard of in most of Europe. Rent and property prices in Dublin driven crazy by high paying multi-nationals which destroy the competitiveness of the country.
Most of our exports come from 40 US owned companies, over 85% in fact. What a position to place oneself in.
Multi-nationals are lovely to have but they are in terms of economic sustainability and jobs they are a distant second in importance to SME’s.
Double edged sword,
Seanie, multinationals were our one saving grace when the sh!t hit the fan in 2007 so I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss their importance. They also create service industries around them which are equally just as important. And if as you say they represent 85% of our experts what do you propose replaces that? It’s not like we have a tonne of natural resources to tap into.
It is the sheer volume of the Pharma industry that distorts the exports.
We live in hope that America will not need someday to refocus tax at home in a recession or jobs at home for political reasons. What a gamble.
Our trade balance is a complete mirage due to Multi-nationals.
Focusing in on SME’s is much more important than Multinationals, they provide most of this countries jobs and spending.
We’ll never reduce unemployment just using multi-nationals, we’ll never have a sustainable tax base or economy by over relying on them.
There are a lot of sme’s that can be brought up to being large players.
Companies like Kerry Group, Glanbia CRH etc are leading global players in their fields, they are some of our multi-nationals, investing large sums all over globe.
Rental increases have nothing to do with google. It’s to do with the lack of housing supply due to a collapsed construction industry based on FF policy.
Don’t forget the planners J. They are still insisting developers build apartments in the middle of no where despite the obvious demand for 3 and 4 bed houses. I’m amazed this isn’t getting more media attention.
Govt too busy bending over for foreign multinationals and rolling out the red carpet for snakes like Donald Trump to help Irish SMEs. I see they’ve brought in an extra USC level now for self employed people. Shows you where their priorities lie.
Self employed earning over 100k. Hardening throttling enterprise is it?
A self employed person has more right to 100k than a high level manager in someone else’s business.
I haven’t much problem with the higher charge at that level but it is very wrong that it is just targeting the self employed. It should be across the board.
The higher tax rate for the self employed who are on reasonable wages shows that the self employed are actively targeted for bleeding.
C’mere to me, where do I get a job that pays €29 per hour??
Primary teacher!
Be a crappie hooker……
When is the next protest against water charges in Dublin?
NEXT Water charge protest: [NOVEMBER, 1st. DUBLIN]
Would like to see the relationship between average gross pay and net pay between Ireland and rest of EU. We have high gross salaries but I imagine they are so high to make up for all the tax and deductions. Talking Private sector here. Public Sector is another animal completely.
In most of Western Europe the tax take is much higher on average, never mind that property tax and water rates are also higher.
The tax wedge is much higher across Western Europe people, ye might not like that fact but that is still a fact.
That’s simply not true Seanie.
A useful graph to include would be each countries % spend of GDP. Most of the EE states with low cost of labour have less than 40% of GDP spent by governments. This with higher % spend have higher hourly rates. Relationship is striking
To take on them we will have to kick every high productivity business out of Ireland.
That is the key difference, most of them do not have any, at any level.
How is competing with high unemployment, low value businesses with poor national infrastructures a good idea.
Luddite.
That’s not my point at all. But I won’t waste my time or yours educating you
Why are labor costs in Ireland always so distorted?
Fact is the Irish worker has 20 days paid holidays in a year.
In Germany the Worker has 30 days paid annual leave ?
First three days of sick leave is at the employees expense.
In Germany sick pay is covered 100% from day (for a limited period of time)
The books are being seriously cooked here it is a complete lie that the Irish worker is so expensive.
However compare the wages of Lawyers,doctors and the public service teachers and politicians.
Our s are some of the worlds most expensive. The Wage issue is pure profiteer propaganda.
So what if we are still above the EU average, we are cheaper on that scale than most of our competitors. We’ll never beat countries like Spain or Portugal or Cyprus on wages, unless we consider cutting wages by 50% and kicking out the high wage multi-nationals.
We pay professional people, senior managers, doctors etc way too much, in many cases double even what wealthy European countries pay.
Legal fees here are outrageous and it is very wrong and selfish that no Govt. have tackled the Law Society here and its closed shop. It is an extortion on Irish society and deeply damaging to business here.
Ah yes, it’d be great if we could just not pay all the people that do all the work and watch the money roll in. A capitalists wet dream.
Welcome to Jobridge Ireland…
Yeah great place u can pay your employees as little as possible. Zero hour contracts jobbridge.fcukn assault on the working class
“Is Ireland really ‘the best small country in the world to do business in’?”
Not with that preposition dangling on the end of its sentence it’s not!
I guess I’m just going to have to pay a few per cent extra tax to set up my soon-to-be-highly-lucrative grammar auditing consultancy in a country with some syntactic credibility. Well done Ireland – that’s one more highly skilled job you’ve allowed to slip through your bungling fingers!!!
Only prescriptive grammarians would present such a narrow, limited and mostly historical interpretation of syntax; it belongs back in the 18th century along with Bishop Lowth. Most modern grammarians accept the proposition that language is better analysed in terms of a lexical approach.
Q. Is Ireland…blah blah blah?
A. No
Enda says it is
No
Support Small businesses
Great country if your name is O’Brien
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