Sir, – I recently rang our local orthodontic clinic in Merlin Park Hospital here in Galway to check on the progress of our daughter getting treatment, as she was put on the list two years ago.
The woman at the clinic informed me that it was only two years since our daughter was put on the list and the normal waiting time was at least three years. She then told me that was the pre-Covid waiting list and that the waiting list has been extended out to five years!
In five years my daughter will be close on 20. At that stage she will be an adult, so what’s the point of her being on a waiting list? Does anybody in the HSE wonder how stupid it is to have a waiting list where the children on it will never get the procedure they were told by public health dentists they would need as a young teenager, not a grown adult.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has to wise up to this arcane system of putting names on waiting lists when the health officials know that these children will never get the treatment they’re supposed to get. Lists will never go away unless actual treatment is carried out. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN CLANCY,
Galway.