A WEST Cork councillor has described as ‘watery at best’ a reply which the Council received from Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) regarding waiting times for patients awaiting surgery for scoliosis and limb deformity.
Cllr Gillian Coughlan (FF) had also asked for details as to what plans are in place to deal with the waiting list times.
She previously raised this issue at a council meeting late last year and spoke about a teenage boy awaiting a scoliosis operation. She said the system is failing his family.
A reply to her query read out at this week’s meeting of Cork County Council stated that CHI is unable to release the information specifically in relation to waiting times for patients in County Cork due to patient confidentiality.
‘The waiting lists for scoliosis is a CHI waiting list and includes children from all counties. Patients are treated first on the basis of clinical priority and secondly on the basis of length of wait,’ the reply said.
The reply from CHI also said the scoliosis operation plan is in place and CHI is working on improving access times for all children with scoliosis.
Cllr Coughlan said the response is unacceptable and that she wasn’t looking for the names and addresses of patients in her query to CHI.
‘There are a lot of children waiting for surgery and I think they could have given us some more information on that,’ said Cllr Coughlan.
‘Children grow and the longer they have to wait, the more complex the surgery will become.
‘While I accept they are getting to grips with the waiting times I want to reiterate that this is not good enough for children in this country to wait any length of time for scoliosis surgery,’ she added.
