SOME patients sent for urgent screening to detect bowel cancer and other serious conditions at Limerick’s largest hospital are waiting almost three months to be seen, when the target deadline for such tests is 28 days.
However, it has been confirmed that some patients offered appointments later cancelled.
And the Irish Cancer society is urging anyone who has waited more than six weeks to ask their GP’s to push to have the procedure.
According to the latest available figures from Healthstats, the performance measuring arm of the HSE, of those patients referred for urgent colonoscopies – a procedure which can diagnose potentially life-threatening cancer – eight people in February and 12 in January were not seen in the 28 day period. The February figures showed patients waiting between 29 and 90 days.
The Healthstat system uses a traffic light grading for the country’s hospital services, with a red light denoting need for urgent action.
The Dooradoyle hospital got a red light on a number of fronts from Healthstats.
MRI and Ultrasound scans were recorded as taking more than 200 days in both GP and Consultant referrals for routine proceedures when the target time is 70 days.
The Emergency Department (ED) saw four in 10 patients in the target time of under six hours. The same number had to wait up to 12 hours, and eight were waiting more than 24 hours to be seen in February.
However, the hospital got the green light in a number of other areas including routine outpatient physiotherapy. All patients who were referred were seen in the target time of 70 days.
The Irish Cancer Society said that “ensuring colonoscopy waiting times are reduced before the roll out of bowel cancer screening in October 2012 is vital to the programme’s success”.
They encourage all hospitals where people are waiting more than six weeks for a colonoscopy, to reduce these waiting times urgently.
In response to queries from the Limerick Post, the HSE pointed out that a majority of people referred for urgent procedures had been given timely appointments, which some then cancelled.
It was also conceded that some patients waited much longer than the target time.
“A guideline on the effective management of the urgent colonoscopies has been agreed to ensure that no further breeches occur,” a hospital spokesperson said.
The MRI scan – which is the only one in the region – is “operating to capacity within available resources,” the spokesperson added.
Concerning the emergency department situation, the spokesperson said that “every effort is made to ensure that patients wait as short a time as possible prior to being admitted. However, it is not always possible to meet national targets due to the demand for in-patient beds”
