LAUSANNE - The CHUV and several regional hospitals in Vaud said waiting times for non-urgent operations had lengthened again this winter. Orthopaedics and some eye procedures were among the files that slipped from weeks into months. Officials blamed staff more than beds.

Cross-border nurses from France remain essential and hard to house on the Swiss side. The canton's high premiums do not, by themselves, hire a night shift.

Bern hears a cantonal story

Vaud deputies carried those numbers into the spring session. A national cost debate that ignores hospital rosters is a debate about the wrong invoice.