158,358 patients wait for specialist appointments in the Canary Islands

The public healthcare system in the Canary Islands is seeing ever-longer waiting times. 158,358 patients are currently waiting for an appointment with a specialist. By the end of June, the waiting list for outpatient specialist appointments was 7,383 people longer than it had been a year earlier.

Waiting lists are particularly long in the five major specialist departments. Ophthalmology, dermatology and ear, nose and throat medicine together accounted for 76,549 patients – almost half of all those on the waiting list. If rehabilitation and traumatology are also included, this figure rises to around two in three of those on the waiting list.

The longest waiting list is currently in ophthalmology. There, 29,779 patients are waiting for an appointment. Of these, 10,679 cases were at the Hospital Universitario de Canarias (HUC in Tenerife), 7,301 to the Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria (both on Tenerife), 5,538 to the Doctor Negrín and 5,332 to the Complejo Hospitalario Universitario Insular-Materno Infantil (both on Gran Canaria). Dermatology follows closely behind with 28,014 patients. In this speciality, the Insular-Materno Infantil led the way with 11,742 patients, ahead of the HUC with 8,626 and La Candelaria with 6,580.

Canary Islands: Four hospitals account for 92 per cent of the specialist waiting list

In the field of ear, nose and throat medicine, there were most recently 18,756 people on the waiting list. Of these, 6,686 were waiting at the HUC, 5,721 at La Candelaria, 3,820 at the Insular-Materno Infantil and 1,844 at Doctor Negrín. In the field of rehabilitation, 15,025 patients were recorded as waiting, including 5,755 at the Insular-Materno Infantil alone. In traumatology and orthopaedic surgery, meanwhile, 13,467 patients were waiting, of whom 5,544 were at the Insular-Materno Infantil and 3,373 at Doctor Negrín.

Looking at the hospitals, the Insular-Materno Infantil is a clear frontrunner with 51,880 patients. It was followed by the HUC with 39,195, La Candelaria with 33,533 and the Doctor Negrín with 20,769 patients. Together, these four hospitals account for around 92 per cent of all recorded specialist waiting list places in the Canary Islands.

The waiting lists on the other Canary Islands are significantly shorter: the Hospital Doctor José Molina Orosa on Lanzarote had 4,754 patients on its waiting lists. At the Hospital General de Fuerteventura, the figure was 3,830, and at the Hospital General de La Palma, there were 2,152 people waiting. At the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Hospital on La Gomera, 1,551 people were waiting, and at the Nuestra Señora de los Reyes Hospital on El Hierro, 694 were waiting for appointments.

The Canary Islands have the longest waiting times in Spain

The average waiting time in the Canary Islands in June was 162 days. This means that the Canary Islands have the longest waiting times for specialist appointments in the whole of Spain. Furthermore, according to figures from the statistics office ISTAC, 32,131 people were waiting for operations in December.

Other cases are spread across numerous specialist departments: in gynaecology, 6,325 female patients were most recently waiting for an appointment. Neurology reported 6,179 patients on waiting lists, urology 5,382 and cardiology 5,079. In addition, 3,929 patients are on waiting lists in neurosurgery, 3,438 in general and visceral surgery, 3,032 in psychiatry and 2,988 in oral and maxillofacial surgery. Furthermore, between 1,544 and 2,372 patients are waiting for appointments in gastroenterology, endocrinology, rheumatology, allergology, vascular surgery and paediatrics respectively.