Minister for Health Simon Harris was away last night when the Claire Byrne Live show took place, but the 30-yr-old did participate in a pre-recorded interview.
The RTE documentary showed the actual number of people on waiting lists is over 163,000 not the official figure of 81,000.
As we reported early yesterday, Harris claims he was brokenhearted and ashamed at what he watched.
He also said the following:
“I don’t think there’s any sugar coating of this, I don’t think there’s any possibility, or any point in anybody saying anything other than that this is … this is wrong, this is something that as a country we can’t stand over.
“It’s something that I as minister for health can’t stand over and it does make me feel ashamed.
“The personal stories of the people waiting for treatment are deeply moving and the experiences they describe are absolutely inexcusable.
“It is for this reason that last summer I requested the HSE put in place an action plan to halve the number of patients waiting over 18 months for treatment.”
A new Facebook page called “Cut The List” to push awareness for the waiting list crisis has been setup by someone in the documentary and is already over 1,000 people.
You can Like it here:
https://www.facebook.com/Cut-The-List-187285075087415/