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Dire hospital waiting lists continue to spiral

DIRE waiting lists figures in Northern Ireland are continuing to spiral - with a 50 per cent increase in delays for first appointments with hospital consultants.

Latest Department of Health figures for December 2014 expose the shocking scale of the crisis, which has been closely linked to the suspension of private health-care contracts with the NHS last summer.

A total of 172,000 patients were waiting for their first hospital out-patient appointment at the end of last year - a staggering 57,000 more than the same period in 2013.

Department targets state that 80 per cent of patients should wait no longer than nine weeks for their first hospital appointment.

However, official figures show this target was massively breached, with more than 61,000 patients waiting longer than 15 weeks.

Inpatient waiting time targets were also poor, with more than 9,700 patients facing delays in excess of 26 weeks for operations and day case hospital procedures.

Orthopaedics, ENT, urology and gynaecology are among the main specialities affected.

In August The Irish News revealed that Northern Ireland's five health trusts have been ordered to "temporarily pause" sending their patients to private clinics due to budget constraints.

A total of £130 million has been paid to the private sector over the past three years - a bill that has raised serious concerns about how the north's most senior NHS administrators organise the north's health services.

Ulster Unionist health spokeswoman Jo-Anne Dobson said the latest waiting list figures exposed a system that was "spiralling out of control".

"Forcing so many people with sometimes painful and debilitating conditions to wait in excess of almost four months to see doctors is cruel. In fact there are laws to stop people keeping animals in such a state.

"The deteriorating state of our waiting lists demonstrates that the crisis in our health service is deepening. Worryingly, however, the scale of the financial black hole in our health service is so severe that the situation is certain to become even worse.

"Every one of our five health trusts do not have the resources they need to meet genuine demand. It is frightening what is coming."