Longer queues for treatment

In fact, however, patients with their health problems have to wait at every stage, not only when they need a specialist consultation, but also for diagnostics and treatment/surgery. Effect? According to the foundation, in the case of heart valve replacement surgery, a total of 12.3 months pass from the visit to the primary care physician to the procedure, and from the visit to the primary care physician to the surgery to remove varicose veins of the lower limbs - over 2.5 years (30.8 months). .

Patients wait more than two weeks (on average) for diagnostic tests and more than a month (on average) for an appointment with a specialist. What's more, as the foundation emphasizes, the waiting time for benefits has increased not only in relation to last year, but in some cases you have to wait longer than ten years ago.

The average patient waiting time for a health service increased by almost a week compared to the previous year, and for a diagnostic examination - more than two weeks. The queues for the appointment with a specialist were even longer - from 2.9 to 4.1 months, i.e. 36 days.

According to the latest edition of the WHC Barometer in November 2022, a patient had to wait an average of 3.6 months for a health service (i.e. comprehensive treatment), but in neurosurgery the average waiting time was about 10.4 months, and in the area of ​​orthopedics and traumatology of movement - 10.2 months. The situation is not much better in dentistry (8.4 months) and plastic surgery (8.4 months). Patients waited the shortest for services in the field of neonatology - 0.7 month and oncological radiology, where the average waiting time did not exceed half a month.

Compared to last year, the queues for services in dentistry, pediatric neurology and neurosurgery were the longest, and the longest in paediatrics, nephrology and cardiology.

What about queues for specialists? The fact that they increased by more than a month on average (up to 4.1 months) does not yet reflect the whole picture. The waiting time for an appointment with an orthodontist is 11.7 months, a pediatric neurologist 11 months and a vascular surgeon 9.1 months. The shortest waiting times are recorded by surgeons, gynecologists and paediatricians. Queues to orthodontists, neurologists and pediatric urologists were the longest during the year, while waiting times for cardiologists, neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons were the most shortened (but only in the case of the latter patients have a chance to see them in less than a month).