Patients with a heart rhythm disorder have to wait seven months for treatment at the Amphia Hospital in Breda. At the Isala Hospital in Zwolle this is only a month. The Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa) is concerned.
Hospitals with long waiting lists should cooperate more with those with short waiting lists, the NZa believes. “We find it very important that hospitals with long waiting lists look for solutions to shorten waiting lists. For example, by seeking out cooperation with care providers in the region that have more space. Or by optimizing the capacity of the operating room.”
The NZa publishes the ‘Accessibility of care’ monitor every month. “This shows that hospitals have been able to provide more planable care in recent weeks. 43 percent of hospitals are providing this care again at full capacity. A month ago this was 36 percent,” says the health care authority about the figures in May.
Waiting time in Breda
It is unclear why the waiting time for a heart rhythm disorder in Breda is so long. No one was available at the Amphia Hospital on Sunday for an explanation.
Having to wait a long time for the treatment of a heart rhythm disorder can cause all kinds of problems, says cardiologist and chair of the Dutch Cardiology Association Joan Meeder. “The hearts of people with a cardiac arrhythmia beat irregularly and that can give people the feeling that they are constantly startled. People are also quickly out of breath.”
“Waiting is very stressful for patients,” Meeder says. “For example, people are sometimes afraid of dying. And that is also a conceivable fear.”
Waiting list in Tilburg
During the corona crisis, hospitals in Brabant postponed numerous operations. But now, months after the last corona wave, many patients are still waiting their turn. The Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospital (ETZ) in Tilburg, for example, has a ‘waiting list with several thousand operating hours’. These are non-urgent operations.
“All twenty operating rooms in the ETZ are in operation. Because of course new patients are added every day, the waiting list has not yet been resolved,” spokesperson Wim Pleunis told Omroep Brabant.
Non-urgent operations
All urgent operations are performed in a timely manner. “The waiting list concerns non-urgent, well-plannable operations, such as many orthopedic procedures. For example, knee and hip operations.”
It could take ‘a good number of months’ before the waiting list is adjusted downwards, according to Pleunis. That depends on several factors, he says:
- influx of new patients,
- holidays,
- sick leave,
- corona/flu in the coming autumn,
- patients who are on the list but who have since been helped elsewhere,
- patients who no longer have symptoms.
Not all hospitals in Brabant use all operating rooms, according to the NZa figures. On average, 4 percent of the operating rooms in hospitals in our province were not used. That is much better than in April, when it was still 12 percent.
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Standards exceeded
Healthcare providers, together with the health insurers, have determined how long a patient can wait for help. They call it the Treeknorm. There is a seven-week waiting period for an operation. However, this standard is still exceeded in many hospitals, the NZa reports.
Correcting a deviation in the nasal septum, for example, takes almost 5 months in Brabant. Helping people with a hernia takes about ten weeks.
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