FIGURES SHOW A backlog of more than 30,000 patients waiting on hospital outpatient gynaecology appointments.

The figures were released through a Parliamentary Question to Sinn Féin TD Sorcha Clarke, who said it is “beyond concerning” and “astonishingly dangerous” that 4,372 people have been waiting over 18 months for an outpatient appointment. 

In total up to 28 January, 30,180 people were waiting on outpatient gynaecology appointments.

Almost 15% of these patients have been waiting more than 18 months for an appointment. Nearly one-third of patients have been waiting between zero and three months.

The hospitals with the highest outpatient waiting lists in this category are Tallaght University Hospital, the Rotunda, the Coombe and Galway University Hospitals. 

5,218 are waiting on inpatient hospital appointments.

The hospitals with the highest waiting lists in this regard were Cork University Maternity Hospital, St Luke’s General Hospital Kilkenny, Mayo University Hospital and Letterkenny University Hospital. 

Similarly, almost 15% of these patients have been on the waiting list for more than 18 months. 

Commenting on the figures today, Sinn Féin TD Mark Ward: “Tallaght Hospital which serves my area of Dublin Mid West has the highest waiting lists in the state with 3,054 women waiting for gynaecological appointments.”

“Shockingly 1,452 of these women are waiting over 18 months for an appointment in Tallaght Hospital.”

Ward urged the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to “take urgent steps” to provide the HSE with additional resources, investment and support to clear this backlog. 

In response to the PQ about these figures, Donnelly said that it is “recognised that waiting times for scheduled appointments and procedures” have been impacted by the pandemic and by the deferral of elective scheduled care during several months in the past year.

“At present the HSE recommends that only critical time dependent elective procedures are undertaken due to the on-going and significant increased demand for bed capacity related to Covid-19,” Donnelly said. 

The waiting list figures were provided by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). 

Donnelly said the Dublin Maternity Hospitals (Holles Street, the Coombe, and the Rotunda) don’t submit full waiting list data to the NTPF.

The Coombe and the Rotunda only submit Outpatient data, while Holles Street does not yet submit any data.