Waiting lists have become a chronic pathology in public health . Not only do the delays to undergo surgery continue to grow every year, there are also considerable delays in consultations for medical specialists.

Despite the official data that maintain the waiting lists of non-urgent operations in 83 days, the reality is implacable and shows that many citizens of the Valencian Community have received citations of almost a year and a half to receive a first diagnosis .

A sample of this statement is the citation sheet for the neurologist who received, on July 3, a user of the health services at the Vinarós Hospital. It is a person who suffers from dizziness and disorientation that, in turn, generate headaches and various discomforts.

Despite insisting on the concern that causes him to ignore the reason that caused the discomfort, the interested party received the summons for November 4, 2020 . In other words, one year and five months to be attended by a physician from the external Neurology office.

The argument used by the hospital in Castellón is the lack of staff and the saturation of services that, according to the management, work beyond their means.

The reality is that the waiting lists in June exceeded their historical record in the Valencian Community with 66,659 people and there are no signs that the consellera Ana Barceló team will solve these delays. By specialties, the ones that wait the longest for an intervention are Neurosurgery, Pediatric Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Traumatology, Maxillofacial Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Urology, Otolaryngology, Gynecology, General Surgery and Ophthalmology .

Health professionals know perfectly well that the real pitfall occurs because, in addition to the thousands of people waiting to be operated, there are many more who have not undergone the first visits with the specialist or diagnostic tests. Hence, many patients still do not know what pathology or condition they suffer .

Sick people that the Health Administration does not count in the lists of surgical delays but that have not yet been treated. In other words, the waiting lists to be operated in Valencian health are many more than those that appear on the page of the Ministry. The reason is that the lists of those who still do not go without consulting the specialists and then being diagnosed with ultrasound, dopplers, echocardiography, CT, MRI and densitometry are not included.

Since the first symptoms of a disease arise until it is diagnosed, several phases must be overcome and a long and desperate process that begins with the primary care physician must be assumed, then goes through the specialist and for periods that reach up to 18 months to Be able to access diagnostic tests.

However, this endless process does not stop slowing down once the test is over. When the patient has undergone the examination, a written report of their case is still needed, detailing all the anomalies detected during the clinical examination. But the patient does not enroll in the waiting lists of operations until the protocol for filling out the report has been fulfilled and has been re-approved by the specialist to confirm a date for surgical intervention.

This slowness is not only harmful to patients, when the disease is detected in such an advanced state that it lacks a solution, but also for the system that must assume the cost overruns of more expensive treatments because the pathologies have already become more acute.

The spokeswoman for Citizen Health, Yaneth Giraldo , considers it "serious" that there are patients who have to wait more than a year to be treated: "We would like to know if the Department makes up the waiting list data, which are not entirely faithful to reality".

Giraldo shows his concern «above all, because they include patients who wait more than one year in the waiting patient stretch with more than 180 days, which means that there are patients waiting 190 days but, also, They expect 370 »details.

According to the deputy of Citizens, her party has been denouncing this situation in the last four years, and warns: «It is not an investment problem, it is a problem of optimal management and planning of human and material resources».

In the case of the surgical waiting list, “it is not possible that the expense to alleviate this situation does not stop increasing and, nevertheless, low cost professionals are created operating in the afternoon in exchange for very low salaries and, in addition, without get to increase the surgical performance of hospitals more than 5% ».

All this, according to Giraldo, "with 5,600 more patients on the waiting list than in March 2016. Neither the Botanic I nor its version 2.0 has a defined road map to end the waiting list."

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  • Valencia
  • Alicante
  • Castellón
  • Health
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  • Valencian Community

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