Latest Laois News: Local TD lambasts waiting times for Laois Child Disability Services

Shocking waiting times for child disability services in Laois – Stanley.

Local Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley has said “Figures released to me on foot of a Parliamentary Question reveal totally unacceptable waiting times for child disability services. The waiting times for Psychology, Speech and Language, Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy in the County are of particular concern.’’

“Some children are waiting over 5 years for Primary Care and Occupational Therapy (OT) services, with the longest wait being 5 years and 3 months.

“A total of 1158 children are on the OT waiting list with 830 waiting over 12 months. 51 children are waiting for physiotherapy with 32 of them waiting over a year. The longest wait for this service is 3 years. Speech and Language (SLT) has a waiting list of 237 with the longest waiting time being 6 months. The longest waiting time for Psychology Services is 48 weeks and has a waiting list of 85 children.’’

“Parents regularly contact me worried and anxious over the fact that they either can’t access services, or their child is waiting months or years. The real concern is that if there is not timely interventions and services provided early on, which may lead to development delays and problems in later life. In the context of the large budget provided for our health services, there has been a failure in service provision by Government and the upper echelons of the HSE.
Up to €22 billion of public money is put into the Health Service each year and rightly so. Despite having one of the best funded health systems in Europe, there are huge gaps in service provisions.

The failure continues to be a lack of progress on building front line services. That is what matters for families and their children. There needs to be an immediate focus on filling those gaps in vital frontline services such as child disability provision’. Any reforms of our health system must start at this level’’

“I am calling on the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly to now set about this task and for timely progress to be made’’.