Average 11 weeks waiting time for eye care due to ophthalmologists shortage

On average, Netherlands residents must wait 11 weeks for eye care, far more than the four-week standard. There is a nationwide shortage of ophthalmologists, and things will only get worse as demand for eye care increases with the aging population, Dagblad van het Noorden reports.

An opthalmologist at Eyescan in Groningen told the newspaper that patients need about six months of patience for an “average” ophthalmological treatment. Two years ago, the waiting period was two weeks, he said.

At the Admiraal de Ruyter Hospital in Zeeland, waiting times increased from 10 to 18 weeks, a doctor told the newspaper. It has to do with the national shortage of ophthalmologists, the doctor said. Many clinics can no longer meet the demand.

There are currently just over 650 ophthalmologists in the Netherlands, a number that is challenging to increase, said the Eye Association, the patient and advocacy organization for people with eye conditions. “There is a maximum capacity in hospitals to train ophthalmologists. As a result, the shortage cannot be eliminated. On the other hand, the pressure on eye care is increasing due to the aging population, which has increased the average waiting time for an outpatient appointment to almost 11 weeks. The standard is four weeks.”

The Ministry of Public Health, Welfare, and Sports recently announced that the annual training capacity for ophthalmologists will increase by three available places next year. That is a relative increase of around 10 percent.

There are also other ways of reducing ophthalmologists’ workload, Gabrielle Janssen of the Dutch Optometrists Association told the newspaper. Graduated optometrists, of which there are 1,350 in the Netherlands, can give screening advice, for example. And projects in which GPs referred patients to optometrists showed that they can take over up to 25 percent of ophthalmologists’ care.

But these projects are challenging to get off the ground on a structural basis because optometry does not form part of the Health Insurance Act, Janssen said to Dagblad van het Noorden. “We are eagerly awaiting a positive ruling from the Ministry of Public Health.”