The number of people waiting for hospital treatment continues to remain virtually unchanged despite the removal of some 5,500 people from the queue under the Government's National Treatment Purchase Fund.
Fine Gael and Labour last night condemned the Government for failing to make any impact on the waiting lists despite election promises to eliminate them altogether by the end of 2004.
While the National Treatment Purchase Fund has bought operations and procedures for 5,500 patients from private health service providers in Ireland and abroad since last year, 28,719 people were still waiting for hospital treatment at the end of March this year.
This represents a fall of just 298 in the first quarter of this year, and 455 in the six months from October to March.
There is now no prospect of the Government meeting its election pledge to end hospital waiting lists by the end of 2004. The fund was championed by the PDs as a means of using private health service providers to help end public hospital waiting lists.
Some progress has been made, however, in reducing the numbers waiting for longer than 12 months, a key aim of the Government.
While 7,890 were in this category at the end of June 2002, this fell to 5,209 in December 2002, and 4,782 in March 2003.
The Government's Health Strategy of last year promised to eliminate this category by the end of 2002.
The Department of Health said yesterday that this category of "long waiters" had been eliminated in Portlaoise, Wexford and Mayo general hospitals, Limerick Regional Hospital and the Regional Orthopaedic Hospital at Croom.
However, while the Government had promised to ensure that no child would be waiting for longer than six months for treatment by the end of last year, the majority of those on in-patient waiting lists at the end of March 2003 were in this category.
Of 1,381 children awaiting in-patient treatment, 819 were waiting for over six months, with 146 waiting over two years. The pattern among children awaiting day-case treatment is similar.
The longest waiting lists remain as before for orthopaedic, ear nose and throat, general and vascular surgery.
The waiting list for in-patient treatment fell by 7 per cent to 17,186 in the first quarter, while the waiting list for day-case treatment rose by 8 per cent to 11,533.
These changes are largely due to the fact that some procedures previously requiring hospitalisation for at least one night can now be performed on a day-case basis without requiring an overnight hospital stay.
Comparisons with the situation 12 months ago are not possible, according to the Department of Health, due to a substantial change in how waiting lists are compiled.
This change added up to 6,000 minor cases to the waiting lists, a spokeswoman said yesterday.
Fine Gael's health spokeswoman, Ms Olivia Mitchell, said the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, should "hang his head in shame" at the figures.
"After six years in office and a doubling of health expenditure, the Government has achieved no appreciable reduction in waiting lists." She said these figures were for the end of March, and claimed it was fair to assume that given the funding crisis faced by many health boards the situation had become even worse.
"The stark truth is, were it not for the National Treatment Purchase Fund - a bizarre system whereby we pay twice for the same treatments - more people would have gone on waiting lists than have come off. The tragedy is that services are now being run down to such an extent it will take years to even restore them to previous levels."
Labour's spokeswoman Ms Liz McManus said the figures showed that virtually no progress had been made in reducing the numbers on hospital waiting lists.
"These figures provide further evidence that the commitment given by the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach on May 6th, just 10 days before the general election, to clear all waiting lists within two years was a sick joke played on sick people."
She said if the hospital waiting lists were to be reduced there should be far more effective targeting of resources.
"In particular, the closure of vital hospital beds must be halted, and all available beds brought back into use as soon as possible."