Almost 60,000 people here are waiting more than a year for surgery, it has emerged.
Some 10,470 of these were waiting up to 13 weeks for surgery, while 16,916 were waiting between 13 and 52 weeks.
A total of 57,056 patients were waiting more than a year for an operation.
At 5,898, the Upper Bann constituency had the highest number of people on the surgery waiting list, followed by North Belfast at 5,781, and Newry and Armagh with 5,500 patients.
North Down had the least amount of patients waiting for an operation at 3,320.
Mark Taylor, Northern Ireland director of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said it is “shocking” that there were 84,442 patients on the waiting list in March.
“It is particularly worrying that almost 60,000 of these patients had been waiting more than a year for treatment,” he added.
“Unfortunately, the colossal size of the NHS waiting list in NI does not come as a surprise to those of us who work in surgery.
“For many years the demand for care has outstripped the capacity of NI’s health care system to meet patients’ needs. This is a wholly unacceptable situation.
“Very sadly, Covid-19 has made things much worse, with a significant deterioration in waiting times. No one underestimates the scale of the challenge we face.”
Last month Health Minister Robin Swann unveiled a five-year, £700m plan to tackle hospital waiting lists, including having surgeries in specialist hubs, ‘mega clinics’ for outpatients, assessment and pre-operative assessment clinics, and a region-wide approach to the problem, as opposed to a disjointed, postcode lottery system.
“The plans include crucial and sustained investment in building up the in-house capacity of our health service,” Mr Swann said.
“If we don’t eradicate the gap between demand and capacity then the backlogs in care will keep re occurring.
“Up until 2014 the gap was managed through in-year funding injections to facilitate additional activity. Those monies have been in shorter supply since then and waiting times have climbed relentlessly as a result.
“Investment and reform are now both required — targeted investment to get many more people treated as quickly as possible; reform to ensure the long-term problems of capacity and productivity are properly addressed.”
Mr Taylor commended the Department of Health’s plan to tackle the waiting lists.
“It set out how to banish long waits for surgery by March 2026 and was in line with many of our College’s recommendations in our 10 Steps Not 10 Years Action Plan,” he said.
“We were particularly delighted to see the minister call for £700m over the next five years to fully resolve the waiting lists and develop a sustainable elective, or planned, care service. Also key to this plan will be the use of Covid-light sites and surgical hubs.
“These will help surgery to get up and running to pre-pandemic levels again, and protect the health service from future stoppages if there are further outbreaks of Covid-19 virus or the winter flu.”
Last week a leading medic warned that efforts to address waiting lists are causing a crisis in emergency departments as the increasing number of elective operations has resulted in a logjam in A&Es due to a lack of beds for emergency admissions.
Dr Paul Kerr, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (NI), said: “Things are very bad at the moment, with the largest numbers and longest waits for emergency admissions we have ever seen.
“There is no visible plan for resolving this situation in our region and there is no visible plan for resolving this situation… things are very bad at the moment, with the largest numbers and longest waits for emergency admissions we have ever seen.
“While a recovery plan has been launched for elective care, this appears to have led to a crisis in emergency admissions.”
