The family of a man who died while waiting for cardiac surgery has sent a solicitor's letter to his doctor at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. It is understood the patient was first put on the waiting list six years ago.
The number of people who have died while waiting for treatment since 1992 is believed to be more than 60, and possibly much higher. Some public patients have to wait for up to six years for surgery, while private patients are usually operated on within weeks of being diagnosed.
According to Department of Health figures, there are 1,477 people waiting for cardiac surgery. However, those involved in treating patients put the figure closer to 1,700.
A spokeswoman for the Department said that it did not keep a record of the people on the waiting list who have died because it "does not keep that information on a routine basis".
A review by the Department begun in June on the location of a new cardiac unit to carry out 500 operations a year is still ongoing. The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, said he was still reviewing the decision to establish the new unit in St James's Hospital in Dublin. University College Hospital, Galway, the Mater Hospital and University Hospital, Cork all want the new centre.
The current problems began in 1988. The policy of returning patients after surgery to their referring hospitals was changed, and instead they were kept at the Mater while they recovered.
A short time later cutbacks were imposed across the health service. The number of cardiac operations was reduced from 1,000 a year to 700 and the waiting list began to increase. It has continued to grow despite an increase in operations to 1,000 sanctioned in 1993 by the Department. A spokesman for the Mater Hospital last night confirmed that a solicitor's letter had been received by a consultant involved in treating cardiac patients in the hospital. The dead man's family is seeking his medical charts.
Mr Freddie Wood, cardiac-thoracic surgeon at the Mater Hospital, said most of those operated on were ill in hospital and too ill to go home without having surgery.
"They are decreed by the referring heart specialist as too ill to go home, so they are the ones that undergo surgery. Of the 20 operations a week that are done by us, only about six are carried out on those already on the waiting list, so the figures are not really coming down." His patients wait an average of two years, he added.
Mr Maurice Neligan, also a cardio-thoracic surgeon at the Mater Hospital, said the hospital would need to carry out a further 250 operations a year to make inroads into the waiting list. People were dying on the waiting list but it was difficult to know exactly how many had died as a result of their cardiac condition.
"We believe that 18 people have died in the past year-and-half, that we know of, on the Mater side of the waiting list alone," he said.