2024-02-13 08:30:00
The Santiago Apóstol Regional Hospital serves thousands of people from Miranda and its surroundings, but sometimes it cannot cope. This causes long waiting lists to be generated, as has happened during the last year in the specialty of Internal Medicine. At the end of the 2022 academic year, this department had, according to data from the Ministry of Health, 130 people pending a consultation, but in just twelve months that number has skyrocketed to almost 240 patients, with an average delay time that regarding two months. This is the largest number of users waiting for an appointment in the last five years, since even in 2021, when the pandemic was emerging, the figure was lower.
The Internal Medicine waiting list has practically doubled and the reason is clear: lack of staff. As explained by Health, this service has eight positions, but only five are fully covered, because there is one professional on sick leave and two other vacancies. Of those positions awaiting the arrival of a specialist, there is only one pending the resolution to assign him. As for the doctor who is not available for reasons of his own health, in the hospital they hope that it will not take long for him to return and in Health they trust in streamlining the work in the coming times.
However, delays in consultations at the Santiago Apóstol Hospital are not only suffered in the area of Internal Medicine. Among the various specialties treated at the Mirandés center, Digestive has also registered a notable increase in its waiting list. In December 2023, this department had 214 people pending an appointment and the average delay time was almost three months, while only a year before there were less than 170 individuals in this situation and they had to wait only 50 days. The latest data recorded is above all the statistics recorded at the end of each fiscal year since 2019.
This problem affects dozens of Mirandese and other people living in small surrounding towns, like Ángel. This resident of a town in the region explains to Diario de Burgos that he first suffered from Internal Medicine problems and is currently facing Digestive deficiencies. Specifically, he comments that he had to go to the hospital to “check his colon” because at the time they removed “some polyps that were not good and he had to return following five years.” However, he received the appointment twelve months later than what his doctor had prescribed and, on top of that, at the last minute it was postponed because “one of the two doctors who are there to do the test is on leave.”
Ángel shows obvious discomfort at the treatment he is receiving from Health. As this patient describes, it is not a minor issue, since “the colon cancer has increased greatly and must be controlled within the deadlines, you cannot wait an extra year and then have the consultation suspended.” His fatigue is even greater because, according to him, he received notification that the visit to the Digestive specialist was going to be postponed, he has filed “a complaint and the response has been that if something happens, we have to go to the emergency room.” .
This resident of the Miranda region also points out that some professionals from the Santiago Apóstol Hospital told him that “it is not possible to refer to other centers because they must be saturated.”
Based on his experience, Ángel confirms that the Digestive service “previously was not enough and had a very long waiting list, but now it is even worse by having only one doctor” and assures that “if the appointment is delayed once more” will have to look for alternatives outside the public service “for a matter of security.”
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