Slugger O'Toole

Northern Ireland outpatient waiting lists are 100 times more than England’s…

Brian O'Neill on September 20, 2019, 12:04 pm | Readers 2010

FactCheckNI confirms Mark H Durkins comment on the health waiting lists: From the article: CLAIM: 105,486 people were waiting over a year for a consultant-led outpatient appointment in Northern Ireland, which is 100 times more than in England, with its population 30 times greater. CONCLUSION: ACCURATE. 105,486 and 1,089 people were waiting over a year for a consultant-led outpatient appointment in Northern Ireland and England, respectively. The estimated population of Northern Ireland and England is 55,977,178 and 1,881,600, respectively. The …

Let’s play shuffle the Granny! The absurdity of our health service waiting lists…

Brian O'Neill on November 12, 2018, 4:32 pm | Readers 1102

Good report by Seanín Graham in today’s Irish News on the surreal situation of patients going abroad for surgery. Essentially a patient can pay to get treated in another European country and the health service will reimburse them the cost when they come home. With waiting lists up to 4 or 5 years for operations like hip replacements many patients are taking this approach, and who could blame them. From the article: A SPIKE in the number of patients travelling across Europe for …

Until we deal with the REAL reasons for our long hospital waiting lists we are just throwing good money after bad…

Soapbox on August 26, 2017, 11:46 am | Readers 1364

The problems in Northern Ireland’s health service (and in particular our constantly lengthening waiting lists) have been a recurrent topic on Slugger. Reference has been made to successive reports recommending transformation and hospital rationalization and the absence of any effective resulting action. As many of those reports have pointed out, the service here gets much more money per head than our adjacent jurisdiction England; we have more hospital beds, more doctors and more nurses. A 2014 study by the National …

What role do consultants play in health service waiting lists?

Terry Maguire on August 16, 2017, 11:31 am | Readers 749

Seanin Graham’s exclusive in the Irish News “Desperate Patients Pay for Eastern Europe Ops” highlights a persistent problem in our Health Service; lengthening waiting lists. She focuses on the use by local patients of surgical services in other European states and identifies the lengths some will go to improve their situation. She has identified the problem and, for very few patients, an expensive solution, and where this is a useful reminder that as a population we deserve better, she fails …

People waiting less than a year in England for surgery compared to five years in Northern Ireland…

Brian O'Neill on August 14, 2017, 6:44 pm | Readers 1143

Great article by Seanín Graham in today’s Irish News about the ever expanding waiting list for medical operations in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland patients are waiting on average five years for routine operations. This compares to less than a year in England. From the article: It emerged that one million patients are now waiting in excess of 18 weeks for ‘routine’ operations in England. But in today’s Irish News, the story of a housebound pensioner who faces a five-year …