SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 17 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The deputy of the Popular Parliamentary Group and spokesman for health matters Miguel Ángel Ponce expressed his concern about the excess mortality detected in the Canary Islands so far this year, for which he asked those responsible for Health to carry out an audit to find out the causes of this important increase between expected and observed deaths.
For Ponce, “we cannot continue waiting for them to explain to us why, to date, the Canary Islands is the fourth community with the highest excess mortality, with almost 1,600 deaths more than expected, which represents an increase of 14%,” according to the System of Mortality Monitoring (MoMo) carried out by the Carlos III Health Institute.
“Despite the fact that the Canary Islands is not one of the communities with high mortality from COVID compared to the others, except in the sixth and seventh waves, it is striking that last year 458 more people died than expected, while in the 8 months of this year this figure has tripled to reach 1,600, a deviation that the Government of the Canary Islands has the obligation to study”, he explained.
In this sense, Miguel Ángel Ponce insisted that it is necessary to rule out whether the collapse of Primary Care, the delay in diagnoses and tests, the waiting times for a consultation with the specialist together with the COVID flu are behind this increase. in deaths.”
In his opinion, “the relaxation of anticovid measures, the non-complete or booster vaccination together with the sanitary collapse are clearly the possible causes that can explain this excess mortality.”
WAITING LISTS
In another order of things, the popular deputy assured that “despite the Government’s propaganda, the surgical waiting lists in the Canary Islands are getting worse, with an increase in the first half of the year of more than 6 percent.”
According to the latest data from the Canary Health Service (SCS), almost 33,000 Canarians, 2,216 more, wait for an operation for about 5 months. Ponce gave as an example the two months on average that is expected for a mammogram, four months for an ultrasound or seven months for an endoscopy, “necessary tests not only for early detection of oncological diseases, among others, but to be able to offer a correct diagnosis and treatment”.
“The increase in times and the number of patients waiting to enter an operating room show not only the fiasco that the Aborda Plan has caused, implemented by the Government to shorten the times for an operation, but also the incompetence and inability of the counselor of Health to arbitrate the necessary measures and protocols in order to prevent the incidence of COVID from having an impact on the care received by the rest of the SCS patients,” he concluded.
