Palma.Poor management of hospital waiting lists is creating unfair pressure on appointment services in health centres, the General Workers Union (UGT) said yesterday.
A UGT spokesman claimed that patients were becoming increasingly intolerant whilst hospital staff were overloaded with work due to lengthening and allegedly uncontrolled queues for treatment.
The UGT said that the situation is being made worse because of the number of pre-operative tests required before a patient can undergo surgery such as blood tests, X-rays and ecographs.
The spokesman pointed out that the longer the wait between the time the tests are carried out and an appointment in the operating theatre, the greater the likelihood of the test results being adequate. It has reportedly been necessary on occasions to repeat the tests due to the time lapsed.
Repeating the tests twice on the same patient just means more money is being drained away from public funding of the Health service, he said.
The log jam in hospital wating lists, said the UGT, simply means that health workers at all levels are being overloaded with work. It delays attention to other people who are in the queue, putting them back even further down the line, the spokesman said.
The union said that it was deplorable that government politicians won't open their eyes to see what is happening in the most important of public services. The Spanish health service is one of the best in the world in terms of low cost for the excellent service received. The UGT say that the sweeping cuts which have been made this year to Health service budgets are resulting in the indiscriminate destruction of jobs and services. Current government policy is converting the Health service into a luxury item rather than one to which each and every citizen should have the right of access. Quality of life is being affected, the union says.