One million people are on a waiting list to be seen at an acute hospital, it was revealed today.
Some 570,000 are waiting to be seen by a consultant, according to Dr Donal O’Hanlon, president of The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), who was speaking at the organisation’s annual conference today.
He said such wait times could exacerbate patients’ conditions and may also be causing them suffering and discomfort, which is unfair as patients have paid for the service through taxes.
The extraordinary waiting lists have been put down to a shortage in hospital beds and staff.
A statement from the IHCA has claimed that one in five consultant posts (500) are either unfilled or only temporarily filled.
These shortages are not only putting patients at risk, but are also causing stressed doctors to burnout and, in some cases, to emigrate. Between 2015 and 2017, 700 specialists have left Ireland to work in the likes of Australia, Canada or the US.
“A doctor is now twice as likely to take his or her own life than a member of the general population,” the IHCA statement added.
“Working in healthcare has always brought with it a level of stress, but in recent years this has been amplified by the deteriorating working conditions faced by doctors on the front line in our hospitals,” said IHCA vice-president, Dr. Gabrielle Colleran.
“These poor conditions mean that doctors cannot work to the best of their ability and are delivering less than optimal care to patients.
“An airline is prohibited from allowing its pilots to work longer hours than is deemed to be safe, but yet we expect our doctors to work in life-or-death situations, despite being overworked and under-resourced.
“The HSE can’t keep expecting our doctors to work in a way which is unsustainable and overwhelming.
“The government needs to take a more proactive approach in fixing our consultant shortage, to improve the working lives of our hospital doctors, and to encourage Irish doctors abroad to come home.”
The association, which represents 3,100 hospital consultants, said they were “extremely disappointed” at the Minister for Health Simon Harris’ withdrawing from attending the conference.
A spokesperson for Mr Harris told RTE that waiting list figures are published transparently on a monthly basis and a range of measures are being taken to try to reduce waiting times for patients.
The spokesperson added that Mr Harris will honour a commitment to start talks this month on pay parity for newer consultants.
He added that the number of consultants working in the Irish health services is continuing to increase.
