About one third of the people taken off waiting lists at a hospital in the north east earlier this year did not undergo any treatment.
Just over 300 patients' names were deleted from hospital waiting lists at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, in the second quarter of the year. Some 100 of these were taken off following a review of the waiting list, not because they were admitted to hospital.
The review or validation of the hospital's waiting lists revealed that some people no longer wanted treatment, had gone elsewhere for treatment or had been on several different waiting lists both in and outside the North Eastern Health Board region.
These details have emerged one day after the Department of Health released figures showing that in-patient hospital waiting lists in the State had fallen by 5,000 in the first six months of the year.
Yesterday Cappagh Orthopaedic Hospital in Dublin stated that more than 300 of the 522 people taken off its waiting list between December 1999 and June 2000 did not receive treatment either. A validation of waiting lists carried out by the hospital revealed 90 had surgery done elsewhere, 30 had died, 30 were on the list more than once, 140 requested their names be taken off the list and 14 did not reply to letters from the hospital.
A spokesman for the North Eastern Health Board confirmed yesterday that there was "a wide variety of reasons" why names were taken off waiting lists at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.
He said the validation procedure had uncovered the name of one man who was on waiting lists to see two consultants in the same speciality at Our Lady's General Hospital, Navan, and also on a waiting list for the same procedure at Cappagh Orthopaedic Hospital.
"In Drogheda, where there are three gynaecologists, a GP might refer a patient to all three and hope that one would be able to see the patient faster than another," he said.
In other instances, patients were on waiting lists who did not need to be on them. Some may have been put on orthopaedic waiting lists, for example, in case they needed a hip operation in five years time, he said.
The Midland Health Board confirmed that most of the patients' names taken off waiting lists at Portlaoise General Hospital between March and June this year were as a result of validating waiting lists. The hospital waiting list dropped by 58 but 42 names were deleted as a result of a validation exercise.
The Western Health Board's director of public health, Dr Mary Hynes, said that in the past waiting lists were artificially inflated by 20 to 30 per cent by the presence of those who had died, received the procedure, declined the procedure or no longer wished to be treated.
She said an extensive validation process had been carried out in the WHB area. She added that it was important to note that a fall of 418 in the numbers on its waiting lists in the first quarter of the year was as a result of hospital activity rather than validation.
The South Eastern Health Board said it did a comprehensive validation of its waiting lists during 1999. The number of persons on its waiting lists fell by 192 in the first six months of the year. A spokeswoman said this could be attributed to increased activity alone.