In a normal country

Health waiting lists are one of those things that seriously affect the daily lives of the general public. Recently the Ministry of Health presented the figures on surgical waiting lists, which came to 57,898 people, with the average delay running to 120 days. According to this estimate, Valencians have to wait on average over four months for surgery in public hospitals. Meanwhile, in hospitals under the public-private partnership model, such as the Ribera Salud type of hospitals, the waiting list for surgery is below 40 days.

The difference is considerable and means that our health departments offer the best solutions to the problems faced by the public, so granting them almost three months of well-being. We have designed programs focused on the application of time guaranteed care, we have prioritized lists based on explicit and incorporated strategies to improve the indication of an intervention or a test. The economic impact and, above all, the impact on the welfare resulting from the reduction in time for both the sick patient and for society as a whole, implies a reduction in rates of absenteeism, medical drug use, improved productivity and even savings.

Together with the discrepancy in waiting lists, the Generalitat Valenciana has also recognized hidden expenses. 2014 closed with 188,833 invoices pending application to the budget at a total amount of 860.4 million euros, according to the Audit Department of the Generalitat. From the position of the public-private partnership model defended by Ribera Salud, we affirm that we represent a saving of between 25 and 30 percent to the public purse, a figure that we can not specify exactly because the invoices lying in drawers make a real comparison difficult as, while our numbers are clear, those offered by the Ministry of Health never cease to generate surprises of the unpleasant kind.

In a normal country, any public service that offered better quality and savings in money for the Public Administration would be set as a good example of optimization of resources. In a normal country, these care strategies and methodologies would be studied to apply them to the entire public system. In a normal country, this knowledge and experience in health innovation would be passed on. I’m sure that the vast majority of Spaniards want to be part of a normal country.

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