NI waiting lists: Health service in court over hospital waits

A woman who paid privately for treatment for cataracts said she had no option as she feared she would not be able "to live independently" without the operation.

May Kitchen, 77, is one of two women who are taking a judicial review at Belfast's High Court highlighting Northern Ireland's lengthy hospital waiting times.

Eileen Wilson, 47, was referred by her GP in June 2017 to see a neurologist - the court heard how she is still awaiting treatment.

The women's legal team argued that the Department of Health and health trusts have a statutory obligation to provide effective healthcare within a reasonable time.

On the first day of the judicial review, counsel described how Mrs Kitchen had to look after her husband who had had cancer while coping herself with failing eye sight.

Her husband has since died.

Opting to go private instead in 2019, the following year Mrs Kitchen said she was offered a telephone consultation by the health trust to discuss her cataracts.

The issue of poor communication between patients and health trusts was also raised.

Mrs Kitchens lawyer told the court that in August 2020, she found it "very bizarre" to discover she was still on a hospital waiting list to have the surgery even though she had gone for private treatment the year before.

If Ms Kitchen had waited for the health service, the court was told her eyesight would have "severely deteriorated."

Within days of the South Eastern Health Trust receiving a call from Eileen Wilson's solicitor, the mother-of-six was offered a telephone consultation.

The court heard that while the telephone conversation took place the consultant did not have access to any scans or x-rays.

The court also heard from a written submission on behalf of Commissioner for Older People Eddie Lynch.

Data obtained by the Commission from the Department of Health dated 19th July 2021 indicated that 40% of people on waiting lists were aged 60 and over.

"It is foreseeable that, with an ever-ageing population in NI, these figures are on an inevitable upward trajectory without intervention,"

Stark waiting list statistics were also presented to the court via a report by health and social care expert Professor Deirdre Heenan.

The statistics showed that at one stage in 2021, one in seven of the population in Northern Ireland were on a hospital waiting list for more than a year.

From the same report by Professor Heenan, counsel for both applicants quoted that "unsurprisingly in NI increasing numbers of people feel that they have been left with no option but to secure their care through the private sector."

Ronan Lavery QC, said in Kingsbridge private clinic in NI, the recent increase in numbers of self-paying patients was stark.

In 2019, there was an 11% increase of patients self-funding on the previous year; 2020 - 24% and in 2021 - 43%.

He also said that in NI, a person was 48 times as likely as a person in Wales to wait more than one year for care.

Speaking on behalf of the Department of Health, Ian Skelt QC said it would like everyone to have the best medical care and that nothing should be taken from its submissions to suggest that the department was diminishing or trivialising what the applicants had experienced.

It said many decisions around handling waiting lists are of a political nature and that should be respected by the court.