A GP has warned a knock-on effect of longer waiting lists is that people can get sicker, or suffer more, while they wait.
A new report from the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has revealed the impact of the pandemic on patients with other illnesses - many of them urgent and life-threatening.
It estimates that a HSE plan, published last week, means over 200,000 fewer patients hospital appointments this year in public hospitals.
Some 153,000 of these are outpatient appointments and 50,000 inpatient and day cases.
According to HSE data, in 2020 there were 248,000 fewer inpatient/day cases than in 2019 - with almost 475,000 fewer outpatient appointments.
While 2020 and 2021 figures combined mean there will likely be more than 900,000 fewer patient appointments in public hospitals compared with pre-COVID activity.
With 860,000 people on waiting lists and hospital bed occupancy rates due to be reduced for to infection control measures, the IHCA says it "continues to be concerned" about bed capacity deficits.
The IHCA has also signaled concerns with a "continued lack of targets" to hire hospital consultants, including 728 permanent hospital posts unfilled.
Dr Ray Walley is former president of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), and a member of the National COVID-19 GP Liaison Committee.
He told Pat Kenny this has affected healthcare right across the board.
"With the special level five lockdown many out patient clinics have been cancelled, many orthopedic operations and other operations have been cancelled.
"And as a result outpatients haven't been seen... acute issues are still being dealt with in Emergency Departments, but semi-acute issues haven't been dealt with, and chronic care hasn't been dealt with.
"A knock-on effect of that is that people can get sicker, or people suffer more, or both - and as a result of that, you've got longer waiting lists".
However Dr Walley suggested the pandemic is not the only root cause of the problem.
"We did have lengthy waiting times: we had in the order of - at the end of 2020 or 2019 - in the order of 750,000, 850,000 people on waiting lists.
"Up till around October last year we had... consultant posts to the order of 728 either vacant or being held by people in temporary position.
"It is something which we need to get working on now - we have loads of reports, we just need to do something with them".
Consultant emigration
Dr Walley suggested that people emigrating for work in the field is more than just pay.
"Part of [the reason] some of these people go away is for extra training, to learn from a different environment.
"But equally I'm afraid it is well known in many of these jurisdictions - especially Canada [and] America - that you have teams supporting a consultant or supporting a junior doctor."
He gave one example where a consultant came from Northern Ireland to "become part of a mental health team" in Dublin, "but he's the only member of the mental health team.
"Whereas he left a job in the north of Ireland where he had a full team.
"It's well documented that consultant salaries in Australia, Canada, the US are 48% less [sic] than the average salaries versus Ireland.
"And these things have been compared and different things, but our consultants tend to have a certain type of contract, have certain obligations - so people when they are comparing salaries need to be comparing like with like".
And he said people that come here to work "will have the same criticism... they are coming from less developed countries to a more developed country.
"But they will acknowledge equally that if they have the choice they will further progress on to the other English-speaking countries - like New Zealand, Canada, America and Australia - because they are more appropriately resourced.
"What we need to do is look at how certain countries have all answered the fight of COVID and learn from what they've done".
"One country we would like to emulate is Holland, which loses none of its doctors to export - because they fund the whole system on a 30/40 year method of appropriate levels at the highest level of healthcare system".
