• Health Waiting lists, Spain's late health: "I don't have the heart test until July 2023, I live with the doubt of whether I'm going to stay on site"

The Ministry of Health has just released the data collected on waiting lists at the end of 2022. And the figures could not be more discouraging: almost 800,000 patients wait an average of 122 days to undergo surgery in public health, while the average wait for consultation with a specialist takes up to 95 days.

According to the Information System on Waiting Lists in the National Health System (Sisle-SNS) of the Ministry, at the end of last year a total of 793,521 patients were registered waiting for a non-urgent surgical intervention, a new historical record, since it represents an increase of 86,781 patients more than at the end of 2021.

With regard to the average waiting time, it remains at values similar to the end of 2021 when it was 123 days, but it is much higher than that registered in June last year (113 days then); In addition, 22% of these 793,521 patients have been on the waiting list for more than six months.

Neurosurgery is the specialty with the most affected, since 43.2% wait more than a semester (203 days). This specialty is followed by Plastic Surgery with 40.5% of users, although the time that passes until these patients are operated on in public health is higher than that of Neurology, since it registers 242 days of waiting.

By number of patients, Traumatology is the specialty with the most people waiting for a surgical intervention with 190,990 users (13,607 more than at the end of 2021), followed by Ophthalmology, with 172,093 (21,738 more than in 2021), and General and Digestive Surgery, with 145,149 (12,709 more than the previous closure).

Communities with more and less waiting

The autonomous communities with the highest percentage of patients waiting for more than one semester are Extremadura (32% of patients), Catalonia (31.6%), Castilla-La Mancha (29%) and the Canary Islands (28.5%). At the other extreme are the communities of Madrid, which is the one that registers the lowest percentage of patients with prolonged delays of more than one semester, only 4.3%, followed by Galicia (6.7%) and the Basque Country (7.1%).

The Canary Islands and Castilla-La Mancha concentrate the longest average waiting times, 157 days ahead of Extremadura (156) and Catalonia and Cantabria, with 154, all of them much higher than the 122 days of national average.

Also in this case, the Community of Madrid has one of the shortest average waiting times, with 63 days, together with the Basque Country (73) and Galicia (75).

As for the average waiting time for consultations and basic specialties, it has also risen from 89 days on average in December 2021, to 95 days at the end of 2022 and despite the fact that in June there was a decrease reaching 79 days.

Neurology consultations are the ones that accumulate the most waiting times (113 days), followed by those of Dermatology (110) and Traumatology (102). General Surgery, with an average wait of 65 days, and Gynecology, with 69 days are the two specialties with the shortest delay times.

Andalusia is at the tail end as the most affected community with an average waiting time of 123 days for consultation with a specialist, followed by the Canary Islands (121), Navarra (99) and Castilla y León (95). The best positioned is the Basque Country, with 48 days. In the National Health System as a whole, 85.7 people per 1,000 inhabitants are awaiting a first consultation with a specialist, according to the report of the Ministry of Health.

According to The Trust Project criteria

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