Carol Nolan Demands Action on Long Health Waiting Lists
Carol Nolan spoke to the minister about the severe impact of COVID-19 on health services and demanded urgent action on growing waiting lists. She warned that non-COVID areas such as cancer care, paediatric care and community therapies are facing a worsening crisis and called for the backlog to be tackled.
Impact of COVID-19 on health services
The deputy said the impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of health services in the state has been catastrophic, with waiting lists across nearly all medical specialties increasing significantly. She warned it will be years before the full magnitude of the crisis in non-COVID care can be determined.
Local waiting lists in Lee Shoffley
Carol Nolan highlighted her constituency of Lee Shoffley, where thousands of adults and children remain on lengthy and unacceptable waiting lists for occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. She stated there are at least 1,118 children waiting for speech therapy and 159 children waiting in excess of 12 months for occupational therapy. She also raised concerns about dental and orthodontic waits, noting children and teenagers waiting at least six to seven years for orthodontic treatment.
Funding for assessment of need
The deputy welcomed a recent decision to allocate increased funding for the assessment of need process, saying it was timely given the scale of the backlog in Lee Shoffley. She framed the funding move as a necessary but insufficient step toward resolving long-standing therapy and care delays.
Call for systemic action
Carol Nolan described the orthodontic and therapy waiting lists as unacceptable and urged the minister to tackle these waits once and for all. She emphasized the urgent need for systematic solutions to clear backlogs in speech therapy, occupational therapy, paediatric care and other non-COVID services.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Minister, the impact of COVID-19 on the on the delivery of health services in this state has been catastrophic but we do know that there were issues with waiting lists long before the pandemic we know that the waiting lists across nearly all medical specialities have increased significantly and that it will be years before we can finally determine the sheer magnitude of the crisis that has been created in non-COVID related areas such as cancer care care and paediatric care not only that but in my own constituency of Lee Shoffley thousands of adults and children remain on lengthy and unacceptable waiting lists for occupational therapy and speech and language therapy I accept and indeed welcome the fact that there was a recent decision to allocate increased funding for the assessment of need process especially given how bad the backlog of cases is in Lee Shoffley but currently we have at least 1100 118 children waiting for speech therapy and we also have 159 children waiting for speech therapy and we also have 159 children waiting in excess of 12 months also for occupational therapy and this is to say nothing of the waiting lists for dental treatment Minister the current orthodontic waiting list in Lee Shoffley is unacceptable and I'm aware of too many children and indeed teenagers waiting at least six seven years on a list it's unacceptable and these waiting lists need to be tackled once and for all
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
