Almost 900,000 people (848,340) were at the end of June waiting for an operation. The data on surgical waiting lists, published this Wednesday by the Ministry of Healthshow some improvement compared to those of December 2023 (these reports are published twice a year), but are still above those of June 2023, a year earlier. In the first half of the year, most communities managed to reduce the number of delays in people on these lists, but there were eight that increased the number of patients pending an intervention.
The higher waiting list rates Cantabria (29.21 per thousand inhabitants), Andalusia (24.40) and Catalonia (24.17) have them, while the national average is 17.93 per thousand inhabitants. The first two, however, have managed to reduce the number of patients they had waiting at the end of June compared to six months earlier.
Quite the opposite is the Catalan community, which added 6,078 more to this line in the first half of the year. Galicia also increased that list by 5,234 while Castilla-La Mancha added 3,416 patients. The rest of the autonomies that had more people waiting for an operation at the end of June than at the beginning of the year were the Canary Islands, the Valencian Community, Navarra, the Basque Country and Melilla.
Even so, and even if that number rises, some of these regions continue to maintain some of the lowest waiting list rates, as is the case of the Basque Country, which has a rate of 10.18 patients per thousand inhabitants or the Community Valencian (10.90). But the region with the fewest people on its waiting list when this rate is observed is the Community of Madrid, in which only 10.06 of every thousand inhabitants join these queues to undergo surgery.
Madrid, with less waiting
Madrid is also the community where there is the least wait to undergo surgery, with an average of 47 days of delay (4 less than at the end of 2023). Also below the national average, which is 121 days (7 less than last December), are other communities such as the Basque Country (61 days) or La Rioja (64). The one that tops the list in this regard is Andalusia, where patients wait an average of 169 days to be operated on, followed by Extremadura, where it takes 164 days.
But there are also 20.5 percent of Spaniards who have to wait more than 6 months to undergo surgery. In Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, more patients are in this situation, with 31.6%, 31.3% and 29% respectively. Madrid also achieves the best data here, since only 0.2% of patients wait this time. In this sense, the region’s Health Minister, Fátima Matute, highlights that the community “continues to lead good care” for all patients and assures that her department will continue working to further improve these waiting times.
The Health report also notes the time that patients wait to have a consultation with a specialist doctor. The national average improves compared to the end of last year by 7 days (it goes from 101 in December 2023 to 94 in June) but in some communities this delay is considerably higher, such as in the Canary Islands (147), Andalusia (135). or Navarre (126). On the opposite side is Melilla, where this delay is 25 days, followed by the Basque Country (49) and La Rioja (58).
In general, the operations that take the longest They are those that have to do with plastic surgery, neurosurgery or traumatology. As for specific processes, the interventions for which the most expected are those for ‘hallus valgux’, commonly known as a bunion (140 days), knee prosthesis (136 days) and prostate (128). However, the one with the most patients on its waiting list is cataract surgery, as there are 128,668 people pending this intervention, although 1,119 less than a year before.
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