A total of 546,630 patients are waiting for outpatient appointments in Ireland, new figures from The National Treatment Purchase Fund reveal. There are 101,724 patients waiting more than 18 months, which is a record high for a patient waiting longer than a year. Figures for March also show over 70,000 patients were waiting for an appointment for inpatient or day case treatments. Of course it is 101,724 more people than Taoiseach Leo Varadkar envisaged when he declared back in January 2015 that ‘no patient will be on a hospital waiting list for more than 18 months’. It will be no comfort to any of the people on the list that the Minister’s goal for 2019 is ‘the stabilisation of the outpatient waiting list’.

Source: Irish Examiner April 12, 2019 21:33 UTC