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117,000 children nationally now waiting for hospital care.  Hospital consultants call for data on the number of children waiting to be published, separate from adult figures. IHCA President Dr. Donal O’Hanlon: “That over 15,000 children, equivalent to the entire population of Castlebar, are waiting for hospital care across the Saolta University Health Care Group’s acute public hospitals, is hugely worrying. “The fact that this information is not published on a regular basis does not make the agonising wait for children and their families any less real or less damaging for the children whose healthy development is on hold”. The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has today (6 December 2019) called for “full transparency” on the numbers of children waiting to access treatment in the Saolta University Health Care Group’s public hospitals in Galway, Roscommon, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal.

117,000 children nationally now waiting for hospital care. Hospital consultants call for data on the number of children waiting to be published, separate from adult figures. IHCA President Dr. Donal O’Hanlon: “That over 6,600 children, equivalent to the entire population of Limerick’s Corbally, are waiting for hospital care across the University of Limerick Hospital Group’s acute public hospitals, is hugely worrying. “The fact that this information is not published on a regular basis does not make the agonising wait for children and their families any less real or less damaging for the children whose healthy development is on hold”. The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has today (6 December 2019) called for “full transparency” on the numbers of children waiting to access treatment in the University of Limerick Hospital Group’s public hospitals.

“While the method, encouraging prompt discharge of patients at St James’s Hospital through incentives for individual hospital wards, was ill-judged, it does not take away from the underlying issue faced by the hospital professionals and all acute hospitals across the country. Namely, the severe shortage of acute hospital beds.

Below is the text of an opinion article which appered in The Echo newspaper in Cork on 29 November 2019

117,000 children nationally now waiting for hospital care

According IHCA President Dr. Donal O’Hanlon:

51,059 people already added to the outpatient waiting list this year 151,637 people added to the outpatient waiting list since the Government first took office in May 2016, which is a 36% increase Winter flu likely to increase number of patients on trolleys and further add to waiting lists   Dr Donal O’Hanlon, IHCA President said: “the numbers waiting to see a hospital consultant have increased by an average of over 5,100 additional people per month since the start of this year. The consultant recruitment and retention crisis, with one in five permanent consultant posts now unfilled is a key factor in the long wait times patients face. We need to end this crisis by restoring pay parity for consultants appointed since 2012 in order to fill the large number of permanent consultant posts that are unfilled.”