The waiting list in consultation of specialties also shoots up 22.7% and affects more than 139,000 people
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 4 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
A total of 34,556 people are waiting in the Canary Islands for an operation at the end of 2022, 5% more than the previous semester, 1,638 more people, with an average waiting time of 157 days -28.5% take more than six- – according to data from the Ministry of Health made public this Tuesday corresponding to the second half of the year.
Traumatology heads the system, with 10,493 people, followed by Ophthalmology (6,987), General and Digestive Surgery (4,906) and Urology (2,667).
In the case of consultations by specialty, the waiting list reaches a total of 139,291 people, 22.7% more, with an average time of 121 days –91.1% wait more than two months– being the cases more bleeding those of Dermatology (28,262), Ophthalmology (24,887), Traumatology (14,745) and Otolaryngology (14,593).
The Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands has issued a statement in which it assesses that the increase in the surgical waiting list is below the increase of 6.87 in the national average.
Thus, it points out that the activity in the second half of 2022 has followed the trend registered in the previous year, in which despite the continued increase in surgical activity, reaching figures similar to those of the pre-pandemic,” the curve of supply and demand, or what is the same, the entries and exits from the waiting list after the tension in the health system caused by the pandemic”.
The Plan Aborda 2021-23, launched by the SCS during the pandemic to reinforce the care capacities of hospitals and reduce waiting lists, led to 64,618 surgical interventions being performed in the second half of 2022, and in the annual calculation the increase is 2.2 percent compared to 2021.
In this line, the Ministry details that the plan has allowed operating room activity to be intensified one hundred percent, both during ordinary hours and outside the usual hours in all SCS public hospitals as well as in other centers, through referrals from quota, renting operating rooms with the SCS’s own staff, or through fully concerted activity.
The number of patients with a programmable surgical indication has been increasing since mid-2021 throughout Spain, as reflected by the Ministry of Health in its assessment of the semi-annual balance by CCAA.
This increase, according to the ministry, is a consequence of the increase in consultations and diagnostic tests, the activities least conditioned by the occupation of beds by covid patients.
However, from the Ministry they emphasize that the delay, located at 157 days, has not exceeded the limits reached in 2020, when it reached 163 days, and even those of December 2017 when 176.6 days of delay were registered. delay, a time in which surgical waiting lists exceeding 30,000 patients were also reached, which demonstrates, in his opinion, “the effort made to care for patients as quickly as possible”.
As for the median –which is the statistical data that reflects that half of the patients awaiting surgery wait that number of days or less– it stands at 90 days, which implies that half of the patients take less than 90 days to be operated.
This increase in the surgical waiting list is also reflected in another 12 autonomous communities, with the average national increase being 6.87%.
Above the five percent increase in the Canary Islands are Andalusia, where the increase is 25.8%, Cantabria with 12.5%, Navarra with 23.5% or La Rioja with 10.6%, while Catalonia and the Valencian Community registered increases similar to those of the Canary Islands with 4.8% and 4.64%, respectively.
DIAGNOSTIC TESTS
The diagnostic test waiting list fell by 6.1% during the second half of this year, standing at 22,760 people, in a period in which a total of 433,375 tests were carried out, 46,600 more than in the first half.
The Ministry of Health advances that it will continue in the line of work to contain and reduce the waiting lists in the autonomous community after this “complex period” due to the conditions of the pandemic.
In fact, it indicates that during this quarter programs have been launched to continue intensifying the surgical activity, consultations and tests with the addition of reinforcement personnel for such activities.
In this way, he details that work continues on a selective selection of patients with the longest delay to be seen, promoting major outpatient surgery, which does not require admission, and working with hospital services on weekend surgical schedules.
