St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny has not yet improved on its record for tackling the waiting list for colonoscopies following a litany of promises from hospital chiefs, HSE executives, and politicians.
A record number of people are still waiting more than three months for a colonoscopy, new figures from the Irish Cancer Society revealed this week, with St Luke’s included on the list of hospitals with the longest waiting lists.
The hospitals with the longest lists are Letterkenny (149 ), Beaumont Hospital, Dublin (662 patients ), St Luke's in Kilkenny (323 ), Tallaght Hospital, Dublin (174 ) and Galway University Hospital (152 ).
The Irish Cancer Society (ICS ) said 2,418 people were waiting for the check nationally last month. There are 71 people waiting more than a year for the test which also screens for other bowel conditions.
This news is even more difficult to accept for members of Susie Long’s family. Long died some three years ago having waited over seven months for a colonoscopy to diagnose her bowel cancer. However, by the time she had the procedure, her condition was terminal.
Responding to the released figures on colonoscopy waiting lists Socialist Party representative for Carlow/Kilkenny and husband of Susie Long, Conor Mac Liam, said: “I am horrified at the doubling of the numbers waiting for colonoscopies over the last year.
“Some 2,418 people are waiting more than three months for this test which inevitably means that a certain number of them will be diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer and face a death sentence, just as my wife Susie did when she was finally diagnosed after a seven-month wait.
“These are the ordinary people who are being sacrificed on the altar of austerity, who are paying with their lives for an under-funded health service while billions of euro are still being poured into Anglo-Irish bank.
“Meanwhile the rich in our society will, if needed, bypass the public queues by visiting private facilities such as the Blackrock Clinic where a colonoscopy can be had at the drop of a hat, covered by ever more expensive private health insurance or by direct payment of a fat fee”.
Mr Mac Liam pointed out that recently Minister Phil Hogan announced capital funding for a colonoscopy unit for St Lukes in Kilkenny, to finally fulfil Mary Harney's promise to Susie in 2007. “There is now a big question mark over what benefit this will have as the hospital is being starved of funding for staff to run it. St Lukes now has the second highest waiting list in the country after Beaumont with 323 people waiting longer than three months”.
He concluded:”My party colleagues Joe Higgins and Clare Daly in the Dáil will attempt to hold the Government to account on this in the first week of the Dáil,”.
