More than 20,000 people are on waiting lists for surgery at hospitals across the State, latest figures show.
These include 17,000 people who are actively waiting for their operations and a further 3,214 who require surgery but have postponed it for now for reasons such as pregnancy or exams.
The figures show that 4,881 adults and 703 children have been waiting more than 12 months for their surgery. This is despite a Government promise in 2001 that no patient would wait more than three months for surgery by the end of 2004.
The data also shows that in addition to the 20,000 or so patients on surgical waiting lists, a further 5,000 are on waiting lists for medical procedures.
The figures were released by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) yesterday which now has responsibility for all waiting list figures as well as for arranging treatment in the private sector for public patients waiting more than three months for operations.
The figures relate to waiting lists at 36 hospitals. Data for Louth County Hospital, Monaghan General Hospital, Naas General Hospital and Mayo General Hospital will be included early in 2007.
Pat O'Byrne, chief executive of the NTPF, said a small number of hospitals - seven - had two-thirds of the patients who were waiting more than a year for surgery.
These included Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda (it has 546 patients waiting over a year for surgery and some patients here are waiting 2½ years for surgery on varicose veins), Letterkenny General Hospital (1,158), the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore (755), Beaumont Hospital in Dublin (360), Sligo General Hospital (357), Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin (130) and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children Crumlin (200).
A wide range of specialities are among those for which patients are waiting more than a year for treatment. They include general surgery, orthopaedics, neurosurgery, urology, ophthalmology, gynaecology and plastic surgery.
Mr O'Byrne urged the seven hospitals to refer more patients to the NTPF so it could reduce waiting lists.
Since last April the fund has written to more than 11,000 of those on the surgical waiting list offering them treatment but to date only 3,337 replied.
"A total of 8,042 patients did not respond to the offer," Mr O'Byrne said. He said the fund would investigate the reasons for this, but he admitted some hospital consultants may be discouraging patients from availing of the fund's services.
Mr O'Byrne stressed that waiting times for surgery had, in general, come down in recent years. On average, patients waiting for the 20 most common operations like hip replacements and cataracts, were now treated within two to five months, he said.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said there were still too many people waiting longer than 12 months for operations in a small number of hospitals. "This is unacceptable. The NTPF has the resources to treat these long waiters and has already arranged treatment for 63,000 patients."