The surgical waiting list at the Molina Orosa Hospital was reduced by 217 patients during the first half of 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic. According to data released this Friday by the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, at the end of last June there were 1,799 people waiting to be operated on at the island's hospital center, compared to 2,016 at the end of 2019.
However, the average waiting time has skyrocketed, from 144 to 186 days. In fact, the number of people who, in June of this year, had been waiting to be operated on for more than six months, with a total of 694, is higher than the number at the end of December, which was 572.
By specialties, traumatology and orthopedic surgery continue to accumulate the largest number of patients as usual, with a total of 833, of which 560 have been waiting for more than six months. It is followed by Dermatology, with a waiting list of 380 patients, although in this case only 28 have been waiting for more than half a year.
In Ophthalmology there are 269 people waiting to be operated on, 66 of them for more than six months, while in Urology there are 209 patients on the waiting list, 38 for more than half a year. For Gynecology there are 59 people, two of them for more than six months; and for Otorhinolaryngology and General and Digestive Surgery there are 40 and 9 patients on the waiting list respectively, all of them for less than six months.
Waiting list for consultations in specialties
Regarding the waiting list for consultations in medical specialties, this has also decreased from 1,755 patients in December 2019 to 1,691 in June of this year, that is, 64 fewer people.
In this case, Dermatology is the specialty that accumulates the most patients on the waiting list with 244, followed by Traumatology and Orthopedic Surgery with 118, Urology with 178, General and Digestive Surgery with 168, Rehabilitation and Endocrinology, both with 111, and Allergy with 100.
With less than a hundred patients waiting are Otorhinolaryngology with 99, Gynecology with 84, Pediatrics with 57, Ophthalmology and Psychiatry, both with 44, Cardiology with 42, Rheumatology with 38, Angiology and Vascular Surgery with 32, Hematology with 31, Pulmonology with 30, Neurology and Internal Medicine with 26 respectively, and Nephrology with 10.
Increase in the list for complementary tests
Finally, regarding the waiting list for complementary tests, this has increased by 208 people, from 110 to 318.
Specifically, at the end of June of this year there were 133 people waiting for an ultrasound, where there was an average waiting time of 122 days; and 116 people waiting for an MRI, where the average waiting time was 62 days.
In addition, there were 39 patients waiting for a CT scan, where the average waiting time is 64 days; a total of 16 people waiting for an echocardiogram with an average wait of 78 days; and 10 waiting for a mammogram, where the average waiting time is 65 days. There were also three people waiting for an ergometry, where the average waiting time was 94 days and one waiting for an endoscopy, where the average waiting time was 14 days.
