THE PUBLIC hospital with the country's longest waiting lists has emerged as one of the largest public sector recipients of payments from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).

University College Hospital Galway (UCHG), where over 1,800 patients are on long-term waiting lists, received over €1.6m last year from the NTPF, the state agency tasked with reducing public waiting lists by providing patients with free private treatment.

Meanwhile, another hospital, Cappagh National Orthopaedic Hospital, re-ceived €2.4m even though over 500 of its patients had been waiting over three months for treatment at the end of last year.

In total, public hospitals received almost 10% of the NTPF's total treatment budget of €99.8m last year, even though the organisation owes its existence to their inefficiency.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said it made no sense to cancel operations in the public sector and then encourage consultants to operate on the same patients on a private basis.

"As long as we have the current budgetary systems, there will continue to be problems with inefficiency and anomalies in the system," he said. But the Health Service Executive said average patient waiting time data was more important than the number of patients on waiting lists at individual hospitals.

"Large hospitals like UCHG service large populations and accordingly will have high volumes of patients on its book at any one time. It will have relatively large numbers listed as waiting and will also treat relatively large numbers each week," said a spokeswoman.

"Cappagh is also the country's specialised orthopaedic hospital and handles cases throughout Ireland. The average waiting times for any operation at these hospitals is 2.7 months at Cappagh and three months at UCHG."