Florence, July 27, 2022 – They improve waiting times per visit ed exams in Tuscany. Thanks also to the contribution of private individuals included in the system for cutting down lists. But unfortunately it is there surgery now to worry more. Not only in the hardest months of the pandemic, interventions to be disposed of accumulated during the lockdown, but also in 2021 and in the first three months of this year, when the Omicron variant took hundreds of health workers simultaneously and refilled hospitals with positive patients, delaying the disposal of the accumulated 37 thousand surgeries.
For all specialistic examinations times are improving: in the period 1-15 July the percentage of visits made within the maximum time limits set by law rose to 78.6% (compared to 74% in the period 16-30 June). The result was particularly good for the cardiological examination, which was one of the black beasts of Tuscan healthcare due to out-of-control expectations, with enormous volumes, which reaches 79.3%, arriving from 75.3, with a trend that has been constantly increasing since March. , when the request was satisfied at 59.6%. Waiting times for all diagnostic tests have also improved so much: 87% fall within the guarantee times (in the period 1-15 July), arriving from 80.3% in the period 16-30 June. In particular resonances: from 74.4% to 81.7%, CT scan from 87.2% to 90.7%, ultrasound scans from 79.6% to 89.9%.
Will it also be the holiday effect? The decrease in demand pressure certainly allows the system to respond more effectively.
But for the surgery unfortunately there is no good news yet. A thousand interventions have been disposed of a month with the plan for which the government has given Tuscany 31 million euros. At this rate, if all goes well, the volume of overdue surgeries will be zeroed in three years. Compared to the 37 thousand interventions accumulated in the two and a half years of Covid, since the beginning of the disposal plan we have reached 33 thousand. The extraordinary plan had started in March and aimed to eliminate the accumulation of interventions by the end of the year.
For surgery the longest lists they are made up of patients waiting for orthopedic prostheses and general surgery. Long waiting times for prostate surgery. In the first six months of 2022, only 38.2% was carried out within the warranty terms established by law. The other black mesh operations: inguinal hernia 57.6% satisfied on time, 67.7% hip prosthesis, 64.3% gallbladder. And the data for the expectations of oncological interventions, those in class A, are also beginning to worsen: in particular for the prostate and breast.
In June, only the Sud Est healthcare company managed to hospitalize almost a number of patients for the operation equal to those of the same month of 2019, prepandemic: 3,378. The others are all in red. Some, such as the North West, even worsen the figure compared to the same month last year: with 2,992 interventions against 3,119 in June 2021 and 3,828 in the same month of 2019. ASL Toscana centro improves compared to June of last year but it is still 33.8% below the pre-pandemic volume, with 3,649 interventions last June against 5,512 in June 2019. The Meyer is down by 42%. careggi in recovery with -16.7%, the Pisan hospital -16.2%, the Sienese -19.4%.