Long wait for vital hospital scans slated as ‘shocking’

Patients at University Hospital Galway are waiting ten days or more for a vital scan with as many 40 patients recorded on a waiting list earlier this month for the diagnostic test.

The figures were described as shocking by Councillor Catherine Connolly, who raised the issue after a member of her own family endured an anxious wait for an MRI scan during the summer.

She told this week’s Regional Health Forum West meeting that her relative was waiting ten days for the vital scan. This patient was deemed to be a priority. She was later informed by medics that there 30 people on a waiting list that day.

However, in answer to her question tabled to the Health Service Executive (HSE), it was revealed that the waiting list could run even longer.

Tony Canavan, chief operating officer for Galway University Hospitals (GUH), admitted there were 40 patients recorded as waiting for an MRI on September 19.

For outpatients, the situation was even more grave, with a waiting time of seven months.

“That’s the face of the cutbacks. They use phrases like cost containment and making services more efficient. Sure anyone could make things more efficient by keeping 40 people on a waiting list. It’s brutality, absolute brutality, not efficiency,” Cllr Connolly told the Galway City Tribune yesterday.

The delay in accessing CT scans at the hospital was not as acute, according to the HSE.

Inpatients normally had their CT performed within 48 hours while the wait for outpatients was currently 105 days.

 For more on this story, see the current edition of the Galway City Tribune