For patients waiting months, sometimes years, for an operation, a new measure is under way to speed things up next year. The Social Security System (Caja) is to inject ¢1 billion ($2 million) into public health care to pay surgeons to work overtime, from 4-10 p.m., every day of the week, the daily La Nación reported.

This could bring solace to the almost 50,000 people whose names trail down the combined waiting lists of 19 public hospitals, according to the total collected in September.

The first phase of the plan will take effect in January at five hospitals: Calderón Guardia (with more than 4,200 in the queue), the National Children's Hospital (almost 3,000), Max Peralta (nearly 500), Tony Facio (1,000) and San Juan de Dios (over 8,000).

San Juan de Dios already got a head start, scheduling doctors to do late-afternoon/early-evening operations in August. By November, surgeons were able to slice the waiting list by 500 patients, the bulk of whom sought orthopedic surgery, the hospital's interim director Ileana Balmaceda told the Costa Rican daily.

-Tico Times