Where you live in Ireland can be something of a postcode lottery when it comes to health.

The bigger cities are well served with major hospitals but they also have big waiting lists too, due to the size of the surrounding population.

Elsewhere in the country, there is a shortage of specialists or services meaning people in rural areas may have to wait years for care, or have to travel very long distances around the country to access surgery.

People want their surgery now. But HSE waiting lists are so long that other options have to be explored.

Like the EU Healthcare Directive which allows people to get treatment abroad, in Spain for example.

The HSE will pay for the treatment and the care can be secured quite fast in high tech hospitals.

People needing hip operations, knee operations or even cataract surgery have to put their lives on hold while waiting for care.

Why wait when there are other options?

The Irish hospital with the longest waiting list for adult inpatient or day treatment is Galway University Hospital with 9,118 adult patients waiting for in patient or day treatment.

Galway is followed by the Mater with 6,114 waiting, St James’s in Dublin with 5,592 waiting and University Hospital Waterford with 4,609 waiting.

The national adult orthopaedic waiting list is 11,017 which consists mostly of people waiting for hip or knee ops.

The national ophthalmology waiting list is 8,555 and much of this is for cataract surgery.

Over 10,700 people are waiting in excess of 18 months for treatment in Ireland, the latest figures show.

So for people waiting, it makes sense to consider treatment abroad so that they can get their lives and quality of life back.