The waiting list for children who are in need of orthodontic treatment in the Laois/Offaly area is now totally out of control, according to Deputy Sean Fleming.
He said he has made various enquiries on behalf of young children who need to be seen to have their crooked teeth straightened.
“The HSE has stated in a recent letter to me ‘I regret to inform you at this stage it is not possible to give you a date of when they will be seen’.
“It is bad enough there is a long waiting list for 1 or 2 years for many services but to think that they cannot even put a time on this waiting list is alarming,” Deputy Fleming said.
“The HSE said that there is a vacant consultant orthodontic post in the region and they have not been able to fill the post,” he said.
He confirmed that are only 2.6 full time consultant orthodontists covering Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath.
“What is clearly needed in this area is for orthodontics in other regions to be brought into Portlaoise to run orthodontic clinics on Saturdays or some other days to clear the backlog,” Deputy Fleming said.
“This happened a number of years ago and was successful. This is one way of urgently dealing with this massive backlog by bringing in orthodontists from either the public or private sector on a temporary basis on one day a week to clear the backlog,” he said.
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