Madrid (EFE) SATSE Nursing.
In a press release, SATSE stresses that the lack of beds is a “huge plug” that aggravates the waiting lists to be operated and recalls that, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, 793,521 patients are waiting to undergo surgery with an average delay of 122 days, and 22% of patients who wait more than six months.
The union maintains that while public health would need 35,000 more hospital beds, “governments and parties maintain policies of disinvestment in means and resources despite the harmful consequences that this has for the health of the population.”
SATSE also refers to the situation that is repeated every summer when “autonomous administrations close hospital beds (8,600 in 2022), aggravating the problem of waiting lists for surgical interventions.”
Another serious consequence, they say, is that due to the lack of beds, it is decided to encourage premature hospital discharges, something that leads to subsequent readmissions and substantially increases the health cost.
For this reason, the union asks the new regional executives to be constituted after the elections that hospital beds be a priority for Health advisers and health managers, in order to solve this public health problem.
