Over 700,000 patients waiting for surgery in Spain

MADRID

Hundreds of thousands of patients have been waiting for surgery in Spain, whose health system has suffered from the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 706,740 patients are waiting in line for surgery in the country, which is the highest level since 2003, according to the country’s Health Ministry data.

Patients are mostly waiting for traumatology, ophthalmology, and general and stomach disease surgeries.

The average waiting time for a patient's surgery was 123 days.

Due to the pandemic, some 6,360 COVID-19 patients received treatment in hospitals, while the bed occupancy rate of these patients in hospitals was 5.12%.

Some 58% of private hospitals in Spain complain about the shortage of doctors and 95% of hospitals complain about the shortage of nurses.

Health workers' associations emphasized that there are similar problems in public hospitals, with first admission service doctors working under difficult conditions.

Early in the pandemic, Spain was one of the hardest-hit countries grappling with several devastating waves.

According to the US Johns Hopkins University, the country reported 104,456 deaths from infectious disease, though the true number is likely much higher due to underreporting at the beginning of the outbreak.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar