The latest figures from the government show waiting lists in Northern Ireland hospitals are at their highest since the current UK government came to power in 1997.

A total of 46,432 people are awaiting treatment in the province's hospitals, according to statistics issued by the Department of Health.

In opposition Labour had promised to reduce the numbers so in the last financial year the government pumped millions of pounds into hospitals in an attempt to cut waiting lists

But they had only limited success - the aim in Northern Ireland was to shorten the waiting lists to 31,000 by last April.

Although the figures did fall they were still well short of that target and the latest announcement shows the lists are now 2,300 short of the worst ever total here.

The suspension of normal business by many hospitals at the moment to enable them to cope with the usual winter demand plus whatever happens over the millennium will only make matters worse.

Meanwhile, the problem of lengthening hospital waiting lists has been brought into sharp focus by the plight of an elderly patient who is being transferred to a hospital in the Republic of Ireland for a hip operation.

The Sperrin Lakeland Trust in Co Fermanagh says Belfast hospitals could not guarantee the woman would be treated in reasonable time.

The patient at the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen has been transferred to a hospital in Sligo to have the operation.

Dr Colin Hamilton of the Western Health Board has been monitoring patient delays between Fermanagh and Belfast.

"It perhaps took two-and-a-half days before they got to the Royal and another day-and-a-half before they got an operation," Dr Hamilton commented.

"The combination was certainly too long for elderly fracture patients."