By José Manuel Escala, Children's urologist and founder of Corporación Renal Infantil MATER
I shuddered to learn of the dramatic figure from the Ministry of Health that showed that 44,000 people died while waiting to be treated on a waiting list in 2022. Of these 38,564 were waiting for specialty care or surgery not included in the AUGE plan.
I am shocked to see that waiting lists continue to be the great pain of our public health system. It is incredible to see that many hospitals in the regions do not have specialists to be able to diagnose people correctly or surgeons to be able to treat them in time. Another factor that contributes to the increase in waiting lists is that public hospitals do not usually operate at full capacity, they do not use all the facilities or infrastructure available, a clear example is the underutilization of the wards, which are usually occupied only during "working hours".
And although it may sound pessimistic, I am convinced that the State alone will not be able to reduce hospital waiting lists in the short term. It needs the support of other civil society organizations and, for the sake of the health of hundreds of people, it is essential that the authorities understand this point if they really want to provide a quick solution to the situation, at least for non-AUGE pathologies.
And this is not about leaving the responsibility in the hands of third parties, but to look for alternatives that allow to reach the objective and to support them. Commitment to the cause. The willingness of the medical staff exists and the willingness of the private sector also exists.
Without going any further, last year the MATER Children's Renal Corporation (an institution I preside) and the Chilean Society of Pediatric Surgery (SCHCP) signed an agreement that aims to reduce the waiting lists for non-AUGE pathologies at a national level and to collaborate so that minors from all over the country can have access to timely surgical treatment.
In this context, in January, forty-one children between 1 year 7 months and 16 years who had been diagnosed with pathologies such as Phimosis, Cryptorchidism and Inguinal Hernias, were surgically intervened at the Hospital de Constitución by a volunteer medical team that traveled especially to carry out this initiative. Some of these patients had been waiting for the surgery since 2019; several had been referred to Talca, but they needed the surgical resolution and the interventions were to be done there, which implied that the little ones had to travel there with their families both for the surgery and for the subsequent controls, and thanks to this private initiative they could be resolved in their city before the time in which it would probably have happened and what is more relevant for the little ones is that they could be accompanied by their families and recover in their homes.
In addition, of the children treated surgically, another ten children were removed from the list who were evaluated by the operation team and it was detected that the problem was not there or that the diagnosis did not correspond. It must be taken into account that this type of diseases have a resolution time that can reach three years in waiting lists and even more, this because being of low complexity they are not urgent. The risk is that, unfortunately, it is not taken into account that if it is not solved in the short term it could compromise even more the health of the children.
The operation in Constitución, like so many others we have carried out previously in other localities, is the result of a joint effort of many people and institutions that are concerned about the long time that many children have to wait to recover their health. To date we have been able to treat more than 700 children in more than 50 operations carried out from Arica to Coyhaique.
Our goal for 2024 is to perform this type of surgery three times per semester and even extend it to areas such as plastic, thoracic and neonatal surgery. But achieving this goal depends exclusively on having the necessary resources to finance them. Therefore, I make an urgent appeal to the Regional Governments and local authorities that have resources, to allocate them to our waiting list resolution projects. The children and adolescents of our country cannot continue waiting. And the solution is practically immediate, at least for low complexity surgeries.
I insist, this is a matter of will, of prioritizing and of commitment on the part of all the actors, the effort is undoubtedly worthwhile and very effective.
