Five years. That is the time that an 84-year-old woman has been waiting for cataract surgery in Lanzarote, according to her granddaughter, who wanted to denounce the "precarious situation" of healthcare on the island. "It's unbelievable what's happening there," she said, also stating that her grandmother's visual health is still in "danger", as she awaits a second ophthalmology operation "that never comes."
"She already had cataract surgery on one eye after waiting five years, but now she has to wait again for another operation for drooping eyelids and she is losing vision," said this woman, indicating that her grandmother has already been "waiting for five months" for this second surgery and that "they have told her that the waiting list is going on for a year." "It's a pass, I don't know if it's because there are no ophthalmologists or what," this granddaughter questioned.
And, as she explained, her grandmother was also waiting for this new operation to be able to change her glasses, since "since she had cataract surgery she couldn't use her old ones" and it is expected that once she is operated on again, her prescription will change. "But in view of the fact that they have told her at least a year, we have opted to buy them, because my mother was afraid that one day she would fall or something because she couldn't see," she indicated, pointing out that the glasses cost "1,000 and something euros" and that her grandmother will probably have to "change them again" when she is operated on again.
"This can't go on like this"
"My complaint goes beyond whether or not they take time to call my grandmother, it is the precarious situation in Lanzarote in terms of healthcare and that nobody seems to do anything to solve it. That is the question and the anger," said this woman who lives in Logroño, and who pointed out that even the family has been considering that her grandmother go to live with her to be operated on there. "But even so there is uncertainty, of course, because we don't know how the waiting lists are here, and also in the end my grandmother, because of her age, said no, that she preferred to stay there," she added.
Thus, she wanted to make public the situation her grandmother is suffering and with it "make visible the rest of the patients who are in the same situation." "That the rulers or whoever realize what is happening, that there are many people like that and that this cannot continue like this, because we are talking about Lanzarote and tourism and how fantastic the island is, but then the people who live there, what about them?" concluded this woman.
