30,000 patients await surgery, some facing wait times of up to two years

More than 30,000 people are on waiting lists for surgery: the number of patients has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, despite the billions of forints spent by the government every year to reduce waiting lists. In 2023, we published articles on the problems of patients waiting for surgery in public healthcare. And nearly a year and a half later, we looked at how hospital waiting lists have changed. It is not uncommon to wait more than 200 days for some operations, but there can also be significant variations between regions when patients are waiting. Infographics show the latest figures for hospital waiting lists.

Last month, Economx reported that more than 30.4 thousand patients are waiting for some surgery, according to the National Health Insurance Fund (NEAK). The situation is unlikely to have been helped by the fact that the heatwave in July hit several hospitals, rendering operating theatres unusable, with some measuring almost 40 degrees Celsius, forcing treatments to be postponed or rescheduled and operations cancelled. We looked at the situation now with waiting lists for surgery.

More than half of patients waiting for two types of surgery

Last April, we wrote that there were 40,000 patients on the waiting list, and it is not uncommon for some surgeries to take more than half a year, and the number of patients was 103% higher than before the pandemic.

We have written that there can be significant differences in when a patient is scheduled for surgery, depending on the type of surgery. At that time, the longest average waiting times were for knee replacement (230 days), hip replacement (130 days) and spine surgery (223 days).

According to the latest data from the National Health Insurance Fund (NEAK), dated 9 August, a total of 30416 people are currently waiting for a surgical procedure, of which 27 thousand were on the mandatory waiting lists.

Nearly half of the patients were waiting for knee replacement surgery, which is followed by hip replacement surgery.

These two operations account for 60 percent of patients.

In the past six months, nearly 25,000 operations were performed, of which almost 10,000 were cataract surgeries. Around 5,000 hip replacements and less than 4,000 knee replacements were performed, far fewer than the number of patients currently waiting in the queue.

Some surgeries can take nearly a year to be scheduled

Besides the number of patients waiting for surgery, it is also important how long patients should expect to wait.

Data show there are significant differences in the time it takes for a patient to be seen, depending on the type of operation.

The longest time to wait is for knee replacement surgery,

The average waiting time over the last six months was almost a year, 324 days.

Those waiting for major extended spine or corneal surgery should also expect to wait more than half a year.

Significant regional differences

Not only does the waiting time depend on the type of surgery, but even for a specific procedure there can be huge differences depending on where in the country you are on the waiting list.

For knee replacement surgery, which has the longest waiting time anyway, two rural hospitals, Kiskunhalas and Kaposvár, have had average waiting times of over 600 days in the last 6 months, meaning that it typically takes more than a year and a half for patients to get on the waiting list. In contrast, the waiting time for the same surgery at the Uzsoki Street Hospital in the capital was typically 154 days.

The hospital with the longest waiting time for cataract surgery was in Kisvárda, with 166 days, while the Békés Vármegyei Central Hospital had the surgery performed 15 days after being put on the waiting list.

We found unofficial waiting lists

In the first part of our series of articles on hospital waiting lists, we showed that some patients can wait months in secret registers before they are put on the official hospital waiting list. Many people are also unaware that they are not on the official waiting list. The unofficial lists have been reported to Atlatszo by several patients across the country, and confirmed by a health professional.

Referring to our article, MP Ágnes Vadai asked Minister of Interior Sándor Pintér whether secret registers exist. State Secretary Bence Rétvári responded on behalf of the minister, listing at length what the Fidesz government has done to reduce waiting lists over the past 12 years. However, he said that under current legislation, service providers cannot keep two lists.

Problems with the waiting list register

But the long wait is only one side of the problem. The law states that patients on the list must be informed of the reason for the wait and the expected time. The doctor must also explain the possible consequences of the waiting time. However, according to the Atlatszo survey respondents, this is not the case. Patients were often unable to say how long they would be waiting, and in many cases were not informed by the hospital about the health consequences of waiting.

There has also been a case where a patient has been removed from the waiting list without a word, wasting months of waiting in line.

The Hungarian government introduced an online waiting list register more than 10 years ago, in 2012. Data from the National Health Insurance Fund Management Agency (NEAK) show that waiting lists for more complex interventions with longer waiting lists have not yet been significantly reduced. The development of the site cost HUF 14 million, and Combit Computer Technology Ltd. was commissioned to carry out the task.

Alternative routes to reduce waiting times

In the fourth part of our last series of articles, we showed how long hospital waiting lists are causing more and more patients to turn to alternative solutions in the hope of reducing waiting times. Those who can are turning to private healthcare, which typically promises faster treatment, but requires patients to dig deep into their pockets – at a cost of up to several million forints per operation. It also turns out that some patients travel up to 100-200 kilometres for an operation.

Increasing complaints, adjusted data

At the end of last year, Economx wrote that information for patients on the waiting list had been tightened up because of the high number of complaints. From July, the law requires the doctor treating the patient to record the fact of the information in the patient’s records, which must include the patient’s signature. NEAK also told the newspaper that technical improvements to the waiting list register are underway. For example, the new site will also show where the shortest waiting time for a given operation is within a given distance from the place of residence.

Later, Pénzcentrum wrote that the health insurer has made a tricky attempt to improve the waiting list statistics: from 2024, only the number of people waiting more than 60 days will be reported. Those who wait “only” 59 days for surgery will not appear in the data, which will make the waiting lists shorter – only apparently, of course, with the cosmeticised data, but the number of people waiting will not decrease.

Written and translated by Zita Szopkó, data visualisation by Krisztián Szabó. The original, Hungarian version of this story can be found here.