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Bariatric Surgery Waiting Lists in Spain

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Abstract

Bariatric surgery is one of the most common general surgery procedures in countries that, like Spain, have public healthcare systems, but is also one of the procedures for which patients have to wait the longest.

The Spanish Society of Obesity Surgery (SECO) conducted a survey to estimate the situation of bariatric surgery waiting lists in Spain’s public hospitals and to gather information on a number of related aspects.

Methods

An online survey was sent to the members of the SECO. The survey received 137 visits, all via the click-through link provided, from 52 health centers (47 public and 5 private). The data collected were included in a database and later analyzed using the SPSS18.0 statistical software package.

Results

A total of 4724 patients were on bariatric surgery waiting lists (BWLs), at an average of 100 per public hospital. Sixty-eight percent had been waiting for more than 6 months. The mean delay per patient was 397 days, and the longest wait was 1661 days.

A further 46.2% of respondents were able to recall cases of patients who in the past 5 years had suffered cardiovascular events with sequelae while awaiting surgery, and 21.2% recalled at least one fatal cardiovascular event in that time.

Conclusion

Our data revealed an unacceptably long wait for obesity surgery. Notwithstanding the limitations and potential biases of our research, the long wait for surgery in our context inevitably has serious consequences for a potentially significant number of patients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SECO Sociedad Española de Cirugía de la Obesidad, Madrid, Spain

    I. J. Arteaga-González & A. C. Carrillo-Pallares

  2. University Hospital of Canary Islands, La Laguna, Spain

    I. J. Arteaga-González, A. I. Martín-Malagón, J. C. Ruiz de Adana, F. de la Cruz Vigo, A. J. Torres-García & A. C. Carrillo-Pallares

  3. Department of Surgery, University of La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain

    I. J. Arteaga-González, A. I. Martín-Malagón & A. C. Carrillo-Pallares

Authors
  1. I. J. Arteaga-González
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  2. A. I. Martín-Malagón
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  3. J. C. Ruiz de Adana
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  4. F. de la Cruz Vigo
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  5. A. J. Torres-García
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  6. A. C. Carrillo-Pallares
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to I. J. Arteaga-González.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent does not apply.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Arteaga-González, I.J., Martín-Malagón, A.I., Ruiz de Adana, J.C. et al. Bariatric Surgery Waiting Lists in Spain. OBES SURG 28, 3992–3996 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-018-3453-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-018-3453-z

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