The family doctors in the Balearic Islands have the most patients assigned to each professional, an average of 1,769 patients per doctor, 31.5% more than the national average of 1,345, 424 more patients in absolute terms, according to the latest report by the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health (FADSP) on the situation of Primary Care in the different Autonomous Communities.
Despite the fact the desirable maximum number of patients per GP is set at 1,500, the Balearic Islands fails miserably in these ratios and is placed as the worst region in the country because almost 75% of its primary care physicians (74.2%) attend between 1,500 and 2,000 individual health cards compared to 35.4% who suffer from this saturation of care in the country as a whole. This percentage is twice as high. The next community with the worst ratios is Madrid, with 47.5% of family doctors in the capital’s health centres with this range of patients.
Likewise, almost one out of every ten general practitioners in this archipelago (9.5%) exceeds two thousand health cards, a circumstance unheard of in five Autonomous Communities (Asturias, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Navarra and La Rioja) and which represents a percentage that is not double but five times the national average of physicians with this over-saturation of care (1.7%).
Oversaturated pediatricians and family doctors
And if the lack of family doctors in primary care in the Balearic Islands is notorious, the lack of pediatricians is even more so. On the islands, each pediatrician treats an average of 1,187 children, the highest ratio in the country ahead of Catalonia (1,136) and, once again, Madrid (1,079). And the Balearic Islands once again stand out in terms of the percentage of these specialists with between 1,250 and 1,500 children in their care, with 14.68% of its professionals in this situation, only surpassed by the 17.14% of the Madrid region. The islands do lead the percentage of pediatricians with more than 1,500 cards assigned to them, 5.59% of their professionals, ahead this time of Madrid (4.23%) and more than four points above the national average (1.40%).
This community also comes out badly in nursing ratios. It is second from the bottom once again after Madrid. In the Balearic Islands each primary care nurse treated 1,740 patients in 2020, making it the second worst region in ratios after Madrid, whose practitioners in this professional category had to treat 1,988 patients. Both were far from the national average of 1,509 patients per nurse.
The latest report from the Federation of Associations for the Defense of Public Health (FADSP) on the situation of Primary Care in the different Autonomous Communities does not leave the islands in a good place, a community that is at the same level as Madrid, at the bottom of the country, in terms of the percentage of public health spending devoted to this level of care, 11.21%, almost three points behind the national average (14.16%).
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