Half of Northern Irish patients wait over a year for treatment

IF YOU ARE ever in Northern Ireland, pray that you never need a gallbladder removal, a neurology appointment or a hip replacement. For these treatments, patients routinely face waits of several years to be seen. Hospital waiting lists, on which the equivalent of a quarter of the population languish, are just the tip of the province’s health-care crisis. According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, three times as many people died due to delays in emergency departments in 2022 as did during the worst year of the Troubles. General practice (GP) and social care are also on the brink. People still love the National Health Service (NHS, or Health and Social Care as it is officially known in Northern Ireland). Increasingly, however, they admire a service that no longer exists.