Till today, inhabitants of Estonia deem quality of health care as high. Even so, as the years go by, the state health system is ever more plagued by waiting list issues.
Waitinglistitis getting bad
20th February 2014, 16:58
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Last year every third person – conservatively speaking – found himself unable to sign in a medical specialist waiting list, as registration only started from a certain date or weekday, according to a study ordered by social ministry and health insurance fund called Citizen Assessments to Health and Health Care, 2013.
Having registered, close to a fifth had to wait for the visit more than two months – clearly longer than the six week limit as established by health insurance fund. Nearly half of those not getting to ambulatory consultation at the time prescribed, claimed their health deteriorated while they waited. «This a bit alarming,» noted Andrus Saar, chief of the polling company Saar Poll.
As explained by Health Insurance Fund chairman Tanel Ross, new contract conditions apply to partners starting this year. Waiting lines at specialties with referrals need to be opened for four months, minimum (without referral, three months). Also, the fund will use a higher coefficient to pay for overtime work at ambulatory consultations, and has specified electronic data communication and treatment quality requirements in contracts.
«I hope that next year’s studies will show that people in Estonia did not find themselves in waiting lists on 35 percent of the cases – that’s not acceptable,» noted social minister Taavi Rõivas.
In addition to the waiting problem, it’s also troublesome that Estonian see dentists too rarely. At least once a year – as recommended – only 36 per cent of those interviewed darkened a dentist door. Avoidance of dentists is mostly explained by absence of complaints and costs of the treatment. Most frequently, dentists were visited by the 15–19 health-insured age group, the 60–74 bunch the most rare to show up.
Though over a half judge availability of health care to be poor, majority of them would still prefer health insurance to cover all health care services – even if that’d mean exceedingly long waiting lists on occasions.
On the sunny side: the study showed that Estonians are quite happy with quality of health care and the system as such. With the services of family nurses, satisfaction is on the upward trend.
Minister Rõivas hopes to accelerate the treatment chain by seven steps, including development of e-consultation and e-referrals system.