Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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9. To ask the Minister for Health to indicate the treatment pathways available for patients who suffer from scoliosis, cataracts and spina bifida, public or private, to help deal with the current backlogs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39443/24]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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This is a similar question. It seeks reassurance for patients who suffer from various illnesses, from scoliosis to cataracts, to spina bifida. Whether they are public or private patients, their concern is for access to treatment within a reasonable time. Do we have the facilities to treat them within this jurisdiction? My belief is that we do. Whether they are public or private, can the two share the burden with a view to delivering to the patients an immediate and rapid service?

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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We could do an entire Dáil statement and debate on this issue, so I thank the Deputy for raising it. The Deputy has raised several areas: cataract services, orthopaedic services, spinal care and more. As I just said, our goal is universal healthcare. One of the pillars is affordability, which we just discussed, and another is rapid access. A huge amount of what we have been doing over the past four to five years is to speed up access to care. We have a ways to go. We are probably four years into an eight-year programme of work to meet the agreed ten-to-12-week targets. That is our goal. It has been agreed right across the Oireachtas. I acknowledge the work our healthcare workers have done and the progress they have made in the past four years. Their most remarkable achievement for patients in terms of waiting times is that the average time people wait for a hospital appointment has halved in the past three years and it continues to fall. It was in excess of 13 months; it will shortly be less than seven months, and the target is that no one waits more than three months. We are well on our way to achieving something that many people said was impossible and that would have Ireland as one of the most enviable public health systems around with those kinds of waiting times.

We have to acknowledge the work of our healthcare professionals They have put in extra hours, done weekend shifts and innovated. I will come back to some of the innovations on cataract services in a moment because the reductions in waiting times in this regard are fantastic. I want to be clear, however: we have a long way to go. As I said, we are about halfway through getting to what we all want, which is that nobody waits more than three months.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The Minister's reply shows an intimate knowledge of the system and its flaws and weaknesses and so on, which we all accept. We have to strive towards universal healthcare. However, it is no good telling that to the patient who has to wait, whether it is scoliosis or whatever else. I had spinal surgery during the summer. It was not possible for somebody to say to me, "We are working towards it. We will get to it in a year or five years." That does not work.

We should select, insofar as we can, the sensitive cases such as scoliosis patients who have been on a list for too long, patients with cataracts or spina bifida cases or whatever. They all need treatment and they need it now. The problem is that we have the expertise to deal with it. I had to have the expertise, although I had to pay for it in the usual way. The expertise was there, however. Once the expertise is there, there is an obligation on the public and private health services to come together to provide the kind of service patients need at the present time by way of co-operation or otherwise.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I agree with a lot of that. To be clear, it is not the case that we are telling people things will get better in the future. I am saying clearly that our healthcare professionals have made remarkable progress already. For example, with regard to cataract services, when this Government came in, the average waiting time for cataract treatment in Dublin, in the Deputy’s constituency and in mid-Leinster, was six years. It is now less than 12 months and falling fast. Children who were referred to an eye specialist in Dublin and mid-Leinster when this Government came in were waiting two to three years; they are now waiting five weeks. Women referred for gynaecology care in Sligo used to wait four years but they are now waiting four to six weeks. We are seeing more and more examples of this throughout the country. I will come back in my last contribution to this question to talk specifically about children’s spinal care.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The Minister is aware and understands this issue. He is at the coalface of it, as are the patients. It is about bringing the two sides closer together. I am aware the Minister realises the urgency of the situation.

I know a patient who had cataract problems and was on a waiting list but could not wait because he was blind. He lived alone and he was blind. He could not drive, communicate, read the newspaper, look at television or anything. His friends, neighbours and family came together to get the surgery done privately. I asked at the time, given the situation, whether the HSE could perhaps make a contribution towards it because the patient has to pay back the money. I received an ongoing, rolling maul of a reply to the question. That is one year ago now. We need to show we are compassionate and that the kind of progress to which the Minister referred is being made. While I know it is his intention do that, we need it to happen on the ground in a way that has not happened before. There has been progress in this regard. While I am fully aware of that progress, we need more of it.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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First, I absolutely do not have an issue with using private care as a short-term means to get public patients faster care. We have used the NTPF as part of our waiting list action plan for the past four years and it has been highly effective in getting public patients care. While we should be building a public health service which does not rely on private care, I have no issue with using private care for anyone who needs care urgently.

This same applies to children’s spinal services. The Deputy will be aware I was in New York and Pittsburgh recently to meet the surgical teams because we are offering care to children abroad. The reality is that the CHI service is not yet big enough. It has not transitioned yet to the dedicated spinal service we want, although there is a lot of work under way. A lot more children have been operated on and received care this year than in previous years. That number will keep increasing. In the meantime, however, we are sending children to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and New York. I am happy to also send children to Pittsburgh and other places. I fully agree that the overriding priority must be for children to get access to high-quality care as quickly as possible.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Bogfaidh muid ar aghaidh go dtí an chéad ceist eile as na Teachtaí atá i láthair, is í sin Ceist Uimh. 11 in ainm an Teachta Duncan Smith.