According to the provisions of the Ministry of Health, the patient should wait a maximum of 52 weeks from the diagnosis and recommendation for this operation. Even that is a long enough time spent in pain. But in many Czech hospitals, the wait is much longer. Sometimes even three years.
The culprit is being sought
Hospitals across the Czech Republic agree that the waiting times for these major operations called total endoprostheses (abbreviated as TEP) are really long, and the disease worsens for patients on the “waiting line”. “It’s a holdover from the drop in planned care during covid, which we’ve practically caught up to.” says Jiří Erlebach, head of the PR department at the FN at St. Anna in Brno, and adds: “It is also necessary to emphasize that as the population ages, the number of patients with severe findings continues to increase and will continue to increase.”
Working Saturdays
Within the regional health network, the waiting time for major joint replacements is constantly being reduced even below the recommended period of 1 year. “In addition, we will also operate in Ústí nad Labem throughout the year 2024 as part of additional Saturday operating programs,” says MUDr. Tomáš Novotný, head of the orthopedic clinic of the Masaryk Hospital.
Don’t take up unnecessary space!
How else to help with an earlier date? Even the patients themselves can do that. Some register at multiple hospitals for surgery, and it would help if they checked out of all other facilities after receiving an appointment, so as not to take up space for other patients. The fact that the patient has already undergone the procedure elsewhere is often learned by the medical staff when they are called before the operation.
Sharp eyesight in a quarter of a year
A slightly better situation is waiting for the date of cataract surgery. But even here there are big differences. While in Prague’s General Faculty Hospital and St. Anna’s University of Applied Sciences in Brno, it takes a maximum of three to four weeks, in other hospitals the average waiting time is 2 to 3 months. The longest you will have to wait for a sharp sight is at the Faculty Hospital in Pilsen, up to 10 months.
We ask the ministry
What should a patient with excruciating pain do when the date of surgery is in sight? “Health insurance companies are responsible for the availability of health care. It is to them that patients should turn with a request to secure a suitable health service provider,” Jan Řežábek from the press department of the Ministry of Health wrote to Bleska.
Deadlines have been stretched by covid
As the population ages, the number of total hip and knee replacements performed increases. “At the moment, we are still catching up with the outage from the covid era. The good news is that they are managing to reduce the waiting time and comply with the deadlines set by the regulation, i.e. 52 weeks,” explains Viktorie Plívová, VZP spokesperson, and adds: “If the client has an appointment for a procedure with a disproportionately long waiting time, he can contact VZP directly, where we will try to arrange a shorter appointment at another facility,” concludes the speaker.
VZP counts
In 2022, 4,000 more clients underwent knee endoprosthesis than in the previous year. In 2022, Všeobecná zdravotno pojišťovna covered TEP (total endoprosthesis) knees for 10,400 clients, a year earlier it was only about 6,400 people. In the same period, VZP recorded an increase of approximately 3,400 clients for hip replacements – in 2021, VZP reimbursed a total of 12,200 procedures, and a year later (2022) already 15,600 clients.
Doctors at Ostrava General Hospital stitched up the amputated finger of a little boy (6) during an eight-hour operation. FN Ostrava
Where and how long you wait for joint replacements.
