June 2007

Report shows waiting list blitz working

More than 200,000 Victorians have had elective surgery operations since the Government’s $52 million elective surgery blitz began about 18 months ago, the latest Your Hospitals report shows.

Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the report showed 202,731 procedures have been performed at Victorian hospitals since the blitz began in July 2005.

‘To put that in perspective, our hospitals have performed 914,653 operations for people on elective surgery waiting lists since 1999.

‘And we are continuing to provide elective surgery operations for around 375 people a day.

‘While these numbers are a great result and they show what a wonderful job our hospitals are doing, demand for health services is increasing with our hospitals admitting 300,000 more people than they did in 1999.

‘The report shows that in the six months to December 2006, 68,207 Victorians needing elective surgery got their operations.

‘So while tens of thousands of elective patients move efficiently through the system and receive their treatment in hospital, they do not show up in the published waiting list numbers.’

Ms Pike said the report shows there are 37,197 patients on elective surgery waiting lists—well below the 40,301 that were waiting for their elective surgery at the end of December 1999.

Ms Pike said 2007 Budget committed $180 million to continue the elective surgery blitz, open two new elective surgery centres at St Vincent’s and Austin Hospitals and increase the capacity at other key suburban and regional hospitals.

Ms Pike said Your Hospitals also showed hospitals went on bypass for just 1.8 per cent of the time in the six months to December, well under the Statewide target of 3 per cent.

Hospitals have also improved their transfer of patients from the emergency department to beds, Ms Pike said.

In the six months to the end of December, 70 per cent of patients were transferred within eight hours—an improvement of one per cent on the same period the previous year.

Ms Pike said the report showed 684,000 patients were admitted in the six months to the end of December, up by 24,000 on the same period the year before.

Hospital capacity was also increasing with 2.28 million bed-days occupied by patients over the six months—an increase of 40,000 bed-days over the same period in 2005.

Emergency departments were busier than ever before with 654,000 people in the six months to the end of December attending the 38 public hospitals with 24-hour EDs—up by 29,000.

However, Ms Pike said, treatment times for Category 1 and 2 emergency department patients continued to be met.

‘Despite continuing growth in the number of people presenting to our EDs, our sickest patients are seen within desirable treatment times.

‘But the higher workload means some less-urgent patients—such as Category 3 patients—may have had to wait longer for treatment,’ Ms Pike said.