{"id":897847,"date":"2026-04-16T11:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/897847\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:15:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:15:15","slug":"spains-waiting-lists-hit-record-high-with-850000-awaiting-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/897847\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain&#8217;s waiting lists hit record high with 850,000 awaiting surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>HOSPITAL waiting lists have soared in Spain with 853,509 people needing surgery last December.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Figures from the Ministry of Health showed that the list had grown by 21,000 since June and an annual rise of 7,000 people.<\/p>\n<p>Just over four million people are waiting to see a specialist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Hospital-operation-and-consultation-waiting-times-fall-in-Spain-but-pandemic-impact-continues-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-271137\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.4997321906802357;width:640px;height:auto\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><strong>OPERATION WAITING LIST RISES <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Average waiting times have reached 121 days for an operation and 102 days for a consultation.<\/p>\n<p>Some 21.6% of patients are waiting more than six months, 1.3% down on December 2024 but 2% up on last June.<\/p>\n<p>Dermatology, with 64 days, and Cardiac Surgery and Ophthalmology, both with 77 days, are the areas with the shortest average waiting times.<\/p>\n<p>The longest average waiting time is\u00a0for Plastic Surgery, with 269 days; followed by Neurosurgery, with 172 days and Angiology and Vascular Surgery with an average wait of 151 days.<\/p>\n<p>The 11 processes that are monitored in this information system have an average waiting time of 93 days.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0average waiting time decreased in eight of the eleven\u00a0processes, standing at 93 days.<\/p>\n<p>There are 200,584 people waiting in Traumatology, 172,974 in Ophthalmology and 149,749 in General and Digestive Surgery- though all three areas have actually seen some of the most significant reductions compared with a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p>The regions with the most patients waiting for surgery are\u00a0Andalucia (199,950) and Catalunya(197,768), which account for 46% of the total.<\/p>\n<p>Both regions also have the highest numbers of patients who take\u00a0more than six months\u00a0for an operation:\u00a064,302 and 63,228, respectively- 69% of the national total.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Basque Country (544), Madrid (654) and La Rioja (504) are the regions that have the fewest patients waiting for more than six months.<\/p>\n<p>Click here to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theolivepress.es\/spain-news\/category\/other-news\/health\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Health News<\/a> from The Olive Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOSPITAL waiting lists have soared in Spain with 853,509 people needing surgery last December. Figures from the Ministry&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,105,246482,32356,18104,8626,104,18106],"class_list":["post-897847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-health","tag-hospital-waiting-lists","tag-ministry-of-health","tag-news-spain","tag-newspaper","tag-spain","tag-the-olive-press"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116414102197188710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}