The Canary Islands is the autonomous community where you wait the longest for a consultation with a specialist, specifically 149 days, and the fourth for a surgical intervention, 147 days, according to the waiting list indicator in the National Health System (SNS) published this Tuesday and referring to the past year as a whole.
In addition, it is the community with the highest percentage of appointments granted in a period longer than 60 days, 91.7% of the total, when the national average is 56.3%.
As of December 31, 2023, there were 147,952 patients in the Canary Islands waiting for a consultation and the specialties with the longest delays were dermatology, with a rate of 13.91 patients per thousand inhabitants, and ophthalmology, with 12.68 patients per thousand inhabitants.
The average waiting time in dermatology is 194 days (in Castilla-La Mancha it is 9 days) and that of ophthalmology, 144 days (in the Balearic Islands, 62).
The next community with the worst average waiting data is Andalusia (143 days), followed by Navarra (114 days), Murcia (110), Extremadura and Aragon (106) and Asturias (100).
At the close of the past year, 33,751 patients in the Canary Islands were awaiting an operation, which represents a rate of 15.95 per 1,000 inhabitants: 27.5% of these had been waiting for more than six months.
Of that total figure, 4,510 patients were waiting in general and digestive surgery, 1,839 in gynecology, 6,798 in ophthalmology, 2,629 in otolaryngology, 9,630 in traumatology, 2,478 in urology, 83 in cardiac surgery, 633 in angiology/vascular circulation, 637 in maxillofacial, 596 in pediatrics, 1,971 in plastic surgery, 211 in thoracic, 1,715 in neurosurgery and 21 in dermatology.
The highest rates of surgical waiting per thousand inhabitants in the Canary Islands occur in traumatology (4.55), ophthalmology (3.21) and general and digestive surgery (2.13).
Nationally, the surgical waiting list reached a historical record in 2023 with 849,535 patients, 56,014 more than a year earlier, and 128 days of average waiting time, eight more than at the end of 2022.
24.3% of patients wait more than six months to be operated on in public healthcare, with neurosurgery at 42.4% and plastic surgery, 40.8%, being the specialties that lead this half-year delay.
Traumatology, ophthalmology and general surgery remain, as in 2022, the specialties with the most patients on the waiting list, followed by urology and otolaryngology.
By autonomous communities, Extremadura is the one with the longest average waiting time (181 days), followed by Andalusia (174), Cantabria (173), the Canary Islands (147), Aragon (146) and Catalonia (138).
The Community of Madrid has the lowest average waiting time (51 days), together with the Basque Country (61), Galicia (63) and the Valencian Community (88).
Regarding patients who wait more than six months to undergo surgery, Cantabria occupies first place with 38.9%, ahead of Andalusia, 38% and Extremadura, 35.3%.
The Basque Country is the community where the fewest patients wait six months, only 2.5% followed by Galicia, with 2.7%.
