Nightmare Waiting Lists: 541 Days for an MRI, 278 for an Oncology Visit

The latest black bulletin on Sardinian healthcare can be found on “Sardegna Salute”, the Region's portal on which the latest update on the monitoring of waiting lists was published.

Under the lens, the outpatient services that family doctors indicate on prescriptions with the letter D, that is, scheduled visits or tests, "to be performed within 120 days". That's four months. But it goes much further.

The bottleneck

Delays do not spare the first visits, the gateway to treatment. The most distressing data concerns Oncology: in the week between 20 and 24 January 2025, the week chosen by the Region for the survey, the wait was 278 days against the 41 recorded in October. The worsening was 578%.

The other first visits

Endocrinology: in the same period between October and January, the waiting time went from 145 days to 156. The same negative trend for the first visit for Vascular Surgery tests: the waiting time was 116 and became 152. For Urology, the waiting time went from 107 days to 158; for ophthalmology, the waiting time went from 122 to 140 days. For the first visit in Pneumology, the waiting time went from 136 days to 162. This scenario largely explains the 13.7 percent of Sardinians who give up treatment.

The second block

Here is the black list of scheduled services beyond the first visits. Again between January 20 and 24, the appointment for an MRI of the lower abdomen and pelvic cavity was given after 541 days. In October, for the same type of check-up, you had to wait 427 days. Snail-like times also for unilateral mammography: from 168 days of waiting, it went up to 214. The lists for MRI of the spine also worsened: from 106 days in October, it went down to 184.