Health minister plans more back surgeries as patients wait in pain

Health Minister Alma D. Möller says more back surgeries are planned under contracts with private providers, after an MP questioned why patients in severe pain are still waiting, mbl.is reported.

Alma said a meeting would be held this week to discuss how many additional operations to commission, which types to include and how to divide them between providers. She was responding to an unscheduled question from Independence Party MP Diljá Mist Einarsdóttir in parliament on Monday.

Diljá cited recent reports about patients waiting for back surgery and doctors’ accounts of severe pain, limited mobility and reduced quality of life. She said Orkuhúsið’s quota for 2026 was much smaller than the previous year’s and had run out in May, despite staff, equipment and facilities being available for more operations.

Alma said the number of operations had already increased. They were previously carried out by Akureyri Hospital and Landspítali, the national hospital, and Icelandic Health Insurance had since contracted with Stoðkerfi at Orkuhúsið and Klíníkin, a clinic, following an open procurement process.

The contracts provide for operations to be spread evenly across the year. Providers can apply to Icelandic Health Insurance for an exemption if urgent circumstances require it, Alma said. If one provider reaches its quota, patients should be referred to the other.

Alma also said a centralised, coordinated waiting list was needed and that demand should be reassessed to determine whether more operations were necessary. She said 200 procedures had been divided between Stoðkerfi and Klíníkin, based in part on data about surgery rates abroad, but added that the decision could be reviewed.

“The fact is that people in severe pain are waiting for surgery and cannot get in anywhere,” Diljá said. She criticised a system in which people who can afford to pay may arrange surgery themselves, including abroad, while others have to wait.

mbl.is reported over the weekend that neurosurgeon Hulda Brá Magnadóttir said people of all ages were living with pain and reduced mobility caused by conditions that could often be improved with surgery.