Thousands of patients are awaiting elective surgery at Wollongong Hospital as the festive season – and traditional slowdown in scheduled operations – looms.
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While the hospital remains open for all emergency surgery over Christmas and New Year – there will be a reduced level of elective surgeries over that period, with normal activity resuming on January 14, 2019.
The latest figures from the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) reveal that while 1633 patients received elective surgery at Wollongong Hospital from July to September, almost 2400 patients were left waiting at the end of the quarter.
That included 379 people awaiting a tonsillectomy; 362 awaiting a knee replacement and 201 in need of a hip replacement.
The figures showed that patients in need of these common procedures were waiting around 12 months on average for surgery.
Wollongong MP Paul Scully said the elective surgery waiting list at Wollongong Hospital kept climbing – with the waiting list at the end of the quarter five per cent higher than the same time last year.
He said worryingly, the BHI figures also revealed a 53 per cent increase in the number of urgent elective surgery cases on the waiting list compared to September 30, 2017.
“These latest statistics provide even more evidence to show that Wollongong Hospital is under pressure and is not getting the resources it needs,” he said.
“Today I repeat my call for an independent review of resourcing at Wollongong Hospital to examine everything that our hospital might need to cope with current demand for services as well as demand for services into the future.
“The people of Wollongong want a health and hospitals system that can cope with current and future patient demands before they want a couple of flashy new stadiums in Sydney.”
However Margaret Martin, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District executive director clinical operations, said the report showed over 93 per cent of the 3383 elective surgery procedures undertaken across all the district’s hospitals were completed within clinically appropriate timeframes.
“Every one of the 810 urgent surgeries (100 per cent) were completed on time, and 94.1 per cent or 937 semi-urgent surgeries were completed on time,” she said.
“Almost ninety per cent (88.6 per cent) of 1276 patients had their non-urgent surgery done on time.”
Ms Martin said the independent BHI figures also revealed several achievements across the district.
“Wollongong hospital improved the percentage of semi-urgent elective surgery completed on time by 4.1 percentage points on the same period last year to 93 per cent, treating 19 more patients than the previous year,” she said.
“Shellharbour Hospital achieved all elective surgery targets with 99.9 per cent of surgery done on time, unchanged from last year.”
Meantime emergency department presentations were slightly down, with 39,331 presentations across the district in the winter quarter – 987 presentations less than the same period last year.
Sixty per cent of the 17,288 patients presenting to Wollongong Hospital’s ED spent four hours or less in the department – compared to 56 per cent in July to September 2017.
“At Wollongong Hospital, the ED continues to review its systems and models of care and develop new initiatives to maintain and improve its performance,” Ms Martin said.
“The initiatives include the commencement of specialised staff who are trained to start initial assessment of a patient under supervision of a nurse or medical officer and who will help with movement of patients through the department.”