30/04/2013 00:00
TW
0
STAFF REPORTER

PALMA
THE waiting list for an operation with the Balearic Health Service (Ib-Salut) stood at almost 12'000 people on 31st March this year, 6.2 percent less than for the first quarter in 2010.

However, the number of patients waiting to see a consultant reached 40'736 at the same date, 19.16 percent more than the same period last year, the regional Health Minister Vicenç Thomas confirmed this week.

Thomas was presenting the latest available data on surgery and consultants' waiting lists, and providing an assessment of both aspects of healthcare during the present Balearic government's term of office. He claimed that there had been “constant improvement” and a decline in both the number of people waiting for an operation and in the amount of time they were standing in the queue.

Thomas said that there were some 800 people less waiting for an operation at the end of the first quarter this year than there were at the same time in 2010 and that the majority of them (9'584 patients, 79.9 percent of the total) were waiting less than three months. Just 3 percent (373 people) have been on the list more than the statutory benchmark of 150 days.

The Minister claimed that medical professionals were doing everything they could to bring down the amount of time that people have to wait before having the required operation.

As a result, he said, on 31st March this year, the average waiting time was 51.4 days, a figure he described as “the best of the last five years,” pointing out that it was six days less than the end of the first quarter last year when the average was 57.75 days.

The average waiting time figure, the report revealed, was also less than at the start of the term of office of the present Balearic government when it was 52.1 days. “We've actually managed to increase the number of operations even though the Health ministry has been contending with the opening of the new General Hospital of Son Espases in Palma,” said Thomas. “Getting all the necessary auxiliary staff in place meant further pressure on the regional budget,” he explained, at the same time thanking the commitment and professionalism of all hospital workers.

Thomas said that although the waiting list for patients to see a consultant had increased by 19.6 percent from the end of the first quarter in 2010 to 31st March this year, 64 percent of patients have apparently been waiting less than a month, and that “only 12 percent” have been waiting more than 60 days. A year ago, said Thomas, the same figure was 30 percent.

The Minister explained that the challenges of opening the new hospital of Son Espases in phases last year and moving patients to the new wards had meant that there had been a downturn in the number of operations and consultancies compared to when the old Son Dureta hospital was fully operational.

But he added that this had prompted an upturn in activity in other public hospitals and had lead to greater inter-hospital efficiency ... to such an extent that last year the average waiting time to see a consultant at Son Dureta was 58 days and now at Son Espases, it's just 53.