PATIENTS LIVING WITH ‘debilitating’ pain every day are among those waiting up to a year for appointments with pain management clinics.

Some patients say “don’t see an end” to their pain after years of disappointment.

The HSE says that there has been a ‘significant’ increase in the number of people needing treatment for pain in recent years.

There are 16 specialised pain clinics in Ireland and currently 14,445 outpatients waiting to be seen. Half of these people have been waiting longer than six months.

Patients are most frequently referred with musculoskeletal pain due to osteoarthritis, as well as conditions such as fibromyalgia, migraines, and chronic abdominal and pelvic pain – all of which affect more women than men.

A small percentage of patients have more complex and rare pain syndromes like trigeminal neuralgia, bladder pain syndrome, and spasticity.

Katherine [who asked for her full name not to be used] has been dealing with chronic pain since an injury in her teens and was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Now in her 40s, she has to rely on family for help with basic tasks.

“I’m very limited at the moment, because if it’s not the pain it’s the fatigue – obviously the pain exhausts you,” she explained.

“My 11-year-old has to help me out a lot, and my five-year-old, in fairness to her, does what she can.

“I have to try and do any bits of housework, and it has to be light housework. I can’t do any of the heavy stuff.”

At the special clinics, patients can get various injections and nerve blockers that can ease pain for weeks or months at a time. Without this care, people can develop a reliance on over-the-counter and prescription painkillers.

After being told by her clinic that she’d be waiting at least another six months for further pain management, Katherine’s GP suggested she go to Belfast.  

The Cross Border Scheme allows people who cannot get the treatment they need in Ireland to go abroad. Patients pay up front and then apply for reimbursement from the HSE.

Katherine says that while it was easy to get an appointment in Northern Ireland in September, within weeks of being referred, there was no follow-up care and she was once again back on the Irish waiting list. 

She wasn’t seen by the HSE then until the following April.

Karen [who also asked for her full name not to be used] has been dealing with a bulging disc in her back since 2018. She’s gotten injections before to deal with the pain but when she has a flare-up, it can be nine months before she gets an appointment for another.

She has taken weeks off work at a time due to not being able to walk with the pain.

“Obviously you don’t want to keep taking painkillers and become addicted … you want to find alternative methods to deal with the pain.

“It’s very hard when you’re dealing with pain and you don’t see an end to it, and you’re constantly waiting for an appointment.”

In a statement, the HSE said that over the past two years, once-off funding has been put into shortening waiting lists for pain conditions, first targeting patients who have been waiting the longest. 

“However,” it said, “it should be noted that demand for many services including pain has grown significantly over the past five years, which has resulted in growth in overall numbers of patients waiting, but patients are now waiting for shorter periods of time”.

As of May this year, nearly half a million people were waiting for a hospital appointment longer than Sláintecare targets, while a total of €80 million in once-off funding was provided to the HSE to tackle wait times.