Hopes for “sizable amount” of Government funding for Galway hospitals
Hopes are high that Galway will get a “sizable amount” of the Governments €350 million allocation towards tackling waiting list times.
Minister of Health Stephen Donnelly today announced the 2022 Waiting List Action Plan. A funding allocation of 350 million has been set aside to help combat the large volume of patients on long waiting lists.
Government projections for 2022 show that over 1.5 million patients will be added to active waiting lists this year.
This is the first year of an annual reform plan to reduce waiting list numbers and times. The Department of Health aims to make lasting change and reduce the volume of patients waiting on care to its lowest number in five years.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (ICHA) has revealed that 57,000 people are waiting on outpatient appointments at the Galway University Hospitals group. An increase of 65 per cent since 2015.
Galway West TD Mairead Farrell welcomes the move and hopes Galway hospitals will get a sizeable amount of the funding.
“I hope Galway receives a sizeable amount of this, because as we saw at the start of the month, UHG has the highest number of people awaiting outpatient appointments at selected hospitals nationwide, with 50,019.”
The Sinn Fein TD also said that while the funding is welcome, she hopes other issues in the health sector are resolved, such as the recruitment “crisis”.
“Increased investment is certainly welcome, but we need to tackle the recruitment crisis. A huge number of our nurses continue to leave the country because the cost of living of so high.”
Speaking at the launch, Minister Donnelly said: “We know, the number of people on waiting lists was already too high before the pandemic and now, following months of disruption to services, there are over 730,000 waiting for care in Ireland.”
The Government has also released a list of prioritized inpatient day case procedures that have been experiencing a particularly high volume of delays in waiting times.
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