Costa Rica Healthcare – I’ve had my knee surgery years ago in a private hospital but I remain on the waiting list from way back when with the CAJA. The CCSS told me I had to wait around 7 years because of lack of equipment needed for the surgeries.
CAJA hospitals are forbidden from sending people away without an appointment yet some are doing so.
It is punishable by immediate dismissal of anyone promoting the practice of telling people to call back at a later date to see if there is availability or giving them papers with numbers to call. One patient found a sign that there simply were no dates available in the specialty she needed.
Is being told there’s a wait of 7 years better or worse?
Appointments that are being given out are ridiculous, some even in the year 2020.
Patients have the right to know their place in line but it means next to nothing when there are 68,000 policyholders waiting for surgery.
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Who gets dismissed for sending people away? My best friend, 68, waited weeks to get an appointment with a doctor at the clinic, & months for his appointment at Nicoya Hospital for X-rays. Of course having an appointment does not mean you don’t spend your day standing in line, so (barely able to walk) he got up at 3AM & walked a mile to get the bus to Nicoya. After traveling for hours, the guard at the hospital turned him away because they were having their fiesta. He got no new appointment, & was denied entrance to the hospital building.