MALAGA TOPS HOSPITAL WAITING LISTS

News

Sally Bengtsson / 2010-07-18 16:50:04

The number of patients awaiting surgical procedures in the city currently stands at 12,200

Residents of Malaga have the longest hospital waiting lists for the whole of Andalucia, according to a recent report released by María Jesús Montero, the councillor for health.

Patients awaiting operations have to wait 56 days, compared to the average in Andalucia of 54 days. Even visiting a specialist doctor would normally involve a wait of 43 days. Despite the fact that waiting times have actually gone down by three days over the past six months, Malaga still tops the list.

But now the health service has promised that it will carry out operations within a maximum waiting time of six months. Other operations, such as cataracts, hip replacements, cysts or varicose veins are guaranteed to be undertaken within 120 days.

The number of patients awaiting surgical procedures in the city currently stands at 12,200 patients. Another 2,300 people are awaiting a doctor’s decision on which procedure should be undertaken. This is the area of Andalucia with most people waiting for operations.

One other negative statistic is the fact that new patients have to wait 43 days for their first visit to their doctor, a period that many patients are calling excessive..

The provision of results for diagnostic tests is also very slow, Malaga being in joint last place with Granada. The towns in the province with the best results are Cádiz -15 days, Córdoba -16, and Huelva- 17.

In the first six months of the year Andalucia health authorities have carried out a total of 6.2 million doctor’s appointments and three million health checks.

But a positive side of the story is that, compared to the rest of Spain, Andalucia is doing very well thankyou. Citizens in the southernmost Comunidad wait an average of 30 days less than patients in the rest of Spain for surgical operations.

Another advantage of the Andalucian system of healthcare is the fact that patients have the option of being operated in a private contracted clinic, if this is the only way to guarantee the operation taking place within the specified time limits. Should the patient refuse this offer, they will remain on the official waiting list but lose their guaranteed limited waiting time.

In the first six months of the year the number of operations carried out has increased, but so has the demand for surgical procedures. This is why waiting times have been unable to decrease further.

The increase in the number of operations is put down to the aging and a growing population living in the area. Also, operation procedures have become a lot simpler than years ago, enabling elderly people who wouldn’t normally bear a surgical procedure, to do so now.