A patient with a chronic illness in Ibiza says medical appointments that had previously appeared in the EspaiSalut application later disappeared from his account, leaving him unable to see them online.

The 34-year-old man, who says he has a recognised 45% disability, has also described a previous serious delay in obtaining an urgent MRI after doctors identified a spinal metastasis. He says the delay left him unable to move or feel his legs for around a month.

His latest complaint concerns both access to specialist care and what he says happened to his appointments in the recently introduced EspaiSalut system.

A Decade of Medical Interventions

The patient, identified as Tomás Planells Struse in a separate published letter, says he is a chronic oncology patient who has undergone around ten surgical interventions.

He says his disability also means he cannot travel to hospital independently.

According to his account, EspaiSalut initially showed around ten pending appointments, some of which were already overdue.

He requested attention under the Balearic health service's waiting-time guarantee, but says he was told that the appointments were follow-up consultations and therefore were not covered by that guarantee.

Appointments Later Disappeared

The patient says that, shortly afterwards, the appointments stopped appearing in EspaiSalut.

He has questioned why they disappeared and says that when he contacted the health service by telephone, he was told that he did in fact have appointments scheduled.

He has formally requested his appointment history in an attempt to establish what happened.

This is currently a patient-reported account. There is no evidence in the available information establishing that EspaiSalut deliberately hides appointments when a user attempts to take a screenshot.

The Screenshot Complaint

One of the patient's specific complaints concerns screenshots.

He says the application prevented him from capturing the information on screen and believes the appointments disappeared when he attempted to document them.

That interpretation has not been independently established.

The safer conclusion is that the patient says the appointments were visible to him previously but subsequently stopped appearing in the application, while he was still told by telephone that appointments existed.

A Previous Medical Emergency

The patient says his concerns are particularly serious because he has previously experienced a major delay in obtaining diagnostic imaging.

He says doctors had identified a spinal metastasis and considered an MRI necessary, but he was unable to obtain an appointment because the service was saturated.

According to his account, he subsequently spent approximately a month in bed without being able to move or feel his legs.

His statement that the delay “practically cost me my life” is his description of the experience and should not be interpreted as an independently established medical finding.

He now says he has another serious knee problem and is again struggling to obtain an MRI.

Difficulty Contacting Traumatology

The patient also says he attempted to contact Traumatology and was told that the service only handled telephone enquiries between 8am and 9am.

He says the alternative suggested to him was to attend an emergency department.

For a patient seeking a specialist follow-up rather than emergency treatment, he argues that this does not resolve the underlying problem.

The Difference Between Follow-Up Appointments and Waiting-Time Guarantees

An important part of the complaint concerns the distinction between different types of appointments.

The patient says he was told that his consultations were follow-up appointments and therefore were not covered by the waiting-time guarantee.

His published account argues that this leaves chronic patients in a different position from people awaiting a first specialist consultation, diagnostic test or operation.

The precise application of the Balearic waiting-time rules to his individual appointments would need to be determined by the health authorities based on the nature and status of each consultation.

EspaiSalut Is a New Digital Health Platform

EspaiSalut replaced the previous patient portal as the Balearic health service's digital health platform.

IB-Salut describes it as a system through which patients can manage appointments, access parts of their medical records, consult test results and reports, view waiting-list information and access medication-related information.

The service is available through mobile devices as well as computers.

The platform has, however, faced criticism since its introduction.

Problems With EspaiSalut Have Been Raised Before

The patient's complaint comes after months of wider criticism concerning EspaiSalut.

In June, problems with the system were raised in the Balearic Parliament, where opposition politicians described difficulties accessing, checking and cancelling appointments.

The health minister, Manuela García, defended the platform as a new digital tool designed to bring together appointments, clinical information and other health services.

She also acknowledged that changes of this kind could require a period of adaptation and provided figures showing that the platform was already being used for appointments and access to medical information.

Separate complaints have also been made by users and healthcare call-centre workers about the complexity of the new system.

IB-Salut Says Traditional Access Channels Remain

Previous statements from IB-Salut have said that EspaiSalut is not intended to be the only way of obtaining an appointment.

The health service has maintained that appointments can also be requested by telephone or in person, alongside the digital platform.

IB-Salut has described EspaiSalut as an additional channel that is being developed and updated as more services are incorporated.

A Complaint That Still Needs an Official Explanation

In this particular case, the key unresolved issue is what happened to the appointments that the patient says were visible in EspaiSalut and later disappeared.

The patient has requested his appointment history, which could help establish whether the consultations were cancelled, rescheduled, reclassified or simply no longer displayed in the application.

At present, the available information does not establish that the system intentionally deleted or concealed his appointments.

It does establish that a patient with significant and complex medical needs says he has experienced difficulty accessing specialist care and believes there is a discrepancy between the appointments visible through EspaiSalut and the information provided to him by telephone.

A Wider Debate Over Digital Healthcare

The case highlights a broader issue surrounding the transition to digital healthcare.

EspaiSalut is intended to give patients a single digital point for appointments, clinical information and other administrative services. At the same time, complaints about access and usability have emerged since its introduction.

For patients with chronic illnesses, disabilities or complex medical histories, the ability to see accurate and up-to-date appointment information is particularly important.

In this case, the patient is now waiting for clarification of his appointment history while continuing to seek specialist care.

The evidence currently available supports reporting his experience as a complaint and an unresolved patient case, rather than concluding that EspaiSalut is deliberately removing appointments or that a specific medical failure has been established.