Alex Trelinski
THE Valencian Community and Andalucia have the worst public health services in Spain, followed by the Balearic Islands, according to an annual study.
The conclusions have been reached by the Federation of Associations for the Defence of Public Health(FADSP),
They’ve graded public health provision in Spain’s regions based on the latest available figures.
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The FADSP admits there are issues due to a ‘lack of transparency and diligence of health authorities which means some statistics are not sufficiently updated’.
Elements analysed include funding and resources including per head expenditure and the number of beds available per 1,000 people.
Other factors are numbers of operating theatres and doctors in addition to waiting lists, pharmaceutical spending, and patient surveys.
The study then pools together everything to create a score system where the maximum value is 142 points and the lowest is 33.
The average score obtained by the regions is 85.41.
FADSP spokesperson, Dr. Marciano Provencio, said: “There is a great disparity in health services between regions, which far from decreasing has increased.”
“This continues to jeopardise the necessary cohesion and equity between areas,” he added.
The worst figure of 62 was achieved by the Valencian Community, followed by 66 for Andalucia, and then 77 by the Balearic Islands.
The best scores were logged in Navarre (106), the Basque Country (105), Asturias (100) and Castilla y Leon (95).
Above average grades were achieved by Aragon (91), Cantabria (91), La Rioja (91), Extremadura (90) and Galicia (82).
Below average were Catalunya(80), the Canary Islands (79), Castilla-La Mancha (79), Madrid (79) and Murcia (78).
The survey also looks at the take up of private insurance with 38.7% of the Madrid region population having policies, followed by Catalunya(32.4%) and the Balearics(30.9%).
In sharp contrast, only 11.2% of people in Navarre have private policies.
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