Children’s spinal surgery waiting list falls below 200, figures show
There are 104 children waiting for spinal surgery with Children’s Health Ireland, including three waiting over a year and a half, new figures show.
That is despite 279 spinal surgeries being carried out since January. The waiting lists kept growing in that time, with 229 new procedures listed.
The overall update from CHI covers children who had their care in private healthcare centres as well as those part of funded plans to tackle the waiting lists.
CHI has faced questions from parents and advocates over delays in accessing these vital surgeries.
Care for children living with scoliosis and spina bifida has been the subject of several critical reports with a HSE-commissioned review still continuing.
CHI said the 104 children are on its active surgery list, meaning they are going through pre-operation assessments.
The update also shows the average wait for an outpatient appointment is now 3.9 months. This is almost halved from an average of 7.4 months last year.
There were also fewer children waiting for these appointments at 431 by July, compared to 557 by July last year.
Some 99.5% of patients have waited less than 12 months for their first appointment. The remaining children waiting longer than 12 months have date scheduled.
