Sinn Féin claim to have solution to long hospital waiting lists
Sinn Féin is claiming that pooling the country's hospital waiting lists will make the system more efficient.
It is part of a new policy proposal from the party aimed at cutting wait times.
It would allow patients to transfer from hospitals with long lists, to those with shorter waiting times.
Sinn Féin's Health spokesperson Louise O'Reilly said: "It means pooling the waiting lists and making sure that people on the waiting lists go to the nearest available hospital.
"Now, we know that this works, we know that it works in Portugal."
Ms O'Reilly says it has also been successful here in the RCSI group of hospitals.
She said: "We can see that they have the lowest, the absolute lowest by a very large margin, rate of increase in waiting lists.
"We can see that it works. I don't know why the minister can't take the initiative and pilot this on a national basis."
