A Madrid health official has accused a doctor of manipulating patient lists after reports surfaced of irregular changes at Ramón y Cajal Hospital. Journalists have presented evidence of altered surgery priorities, but the hospital and authorities have not responded.
Madrid’s public health system is facing criticism after the regional health chief accused a doctor of tampering with patient waitlists, following reports that surgery priorities were changed at Ramón y Cajal Hospital. The issue came to light when journalist Fernando Peinado of El País revealed that two hospital managers had downgraded the urgency of patients waiting for surgery, making the official waitlist numbers look better than they were.
Regional health minister Fatima Matute responded by alleging that the doctor who reported the irregularities had himself changed the priority status of 57 patients, supposedly to reduce his workload and avoid more complicated cases. Peinado disputed this on Hora 25, pointing to extensive documentation—pages of records, emails, and screenshots from the hospital’s internal system—showing that it was hospital leadership, not the whistleblower, who altered patient priorities.
Peinado cited evidence such as a message from a surgeon to her supervisor on the day she noticed the changes, and the supervisor’s own admission that urgent cases should not be marked as high priority. Despite these records, neither the hospital nor the regional health department has issued an official response to the allegations or the evidence.
This is not the first time Ramón y Cajal Hospital has come under scrutiny for how it manages surgical waitlists. Earlier reports described internal directives that led to downgrading patient priority to meet productivity targets, causing delays for urgent surgeries and resulting in disciplinary actions.
The current dispute has deepened tensions between frontline medical staff and health authorities in Madrid. The lack of transparency and the decision to focus on the whistleblower instead of addressing the documented irregularities raise questions about accountability in the public health system. When detailed evidence is met with counter-accusations and silence from officials, public trust in healthcare management suffers. The facts reported by El País and the absence of a clear response from authorities suggest the issue of manipulated waitlists at Ramón y Cajal Hospital remains unresolved, and the credibility of Madrid’s health administration is now in question.
ARA, EFE/Infobae, RTVE, elDiario.es
