The Council for Transparency and Good Governance had to urge the Ministry of Health to provide this data. The statistics reveal that, in the National Health System, there are serious differences in waiting lists between the Autonomous Communities.
Data not easily provided by the Health Department
Indeed, we have been waiting for more than ten years for data with a breakdown by autonomous region, in order to be able to evaluate these differences.
It has been thanks to a Transparency Law, which has required us to provide this information on the number of people waiting for an operation. Since 2003, we only knew the national average, but not the information by region.
Inequalities between Autonomous Communities
Based on this information, we can draw the following conclusions:
- The Canary Islands is the worst in the country, followed by Castilla-La Mancha (with 162 and 147 days of average waiting time for surgery, respectively).
- On the other side of the coin are the Rioja and Basque regions, which are fortunate enough to wait 46 and 49 days on average, in that order.
- Between December 2014 and June 2016, that is, a year and a half, the number of Spaniards waiting for surgery increased by more than 50,000 people (reaching almost 570,000).
The data are very worrying, and the problem is that for now, it seems that we are only getting worse.
What this data looks like in Aragón
In the statistics, we could say that Aragon is in the upper-middle part of the list. In other words, we do not come out very well:
- In traumatology: we are the 4th worst Community, with 131 waiting days for this type of surgery.
- In general and digestive surgery: the 6th Autonomous Community in surgical waiting time, with an average of 85 days.
A pity to have to wait so long to get a diagnosis.
Waiting list including specialist referral
The data we are counting count from the time the need for surgery is prescribed until the surgery is completed. However, to this must be added, of course, the time that elapses since the primary care physician refers us to the specialist.
The national average waiting time, in this step from the family physician to the specialist, is 49 days (although also with inequalities, given that in the Canary Islands it is 103 and in La Rioja 23).
The truth is that these are very worrying figures, which has led many people to take out health insurance. As we said recently, there are already about 11.5 million people insured (20% of the population). –
If you want to know which is the health insurance that best suits your needs: for coverage, best specialists and cost, contact us. We have special agreements with the main health insurance companies.
