The number of people queued for publicly funded elective surgery in WA has soared to more than 18,000, fuelled by a downturn in operations in April.
Latest Health Department figures show 18,303 would-be patients were on the waiting list at the end of April – the most in comparable data going back to January 2013 – and 2153 more than at the same time last year.
Average waiting times have increased in the past 12 months from 1.84 months to 2.27 months, and though almost 6000 patients had their surgery in April, it was 1326 fewer than in the previous month.
Figures also show 104 cate- gory 1 patients, the most urgent cases, waiting beyond the medically recommended maximum of 30 days.
This year the State Government blamed recent increases on the reconfiguration of metropolitan hospitals, including the opening of Fiona Stanley Hospital, which has been fully operational since February, and promised the figures would start to turn around.
But shadow health minister Roger Cook said blaming the rises on the recent hospital changes was starting to sound like a hollow excuse.
“It’s starting to sound like a complete nonsense that things are going to improve, because the Government has been saying that since the start of the year,” he said. “We now have a record number on the list and they’re also waiting longer than before, so it shows the Government doesn’t have a solution.”
A department spokeswoman said yesterday WA Health was committed to reducing the elective surgery wait list and would continue working to improve.
Mr Cook also criticised a lack of progress on the Government’s plans to cut ambulance ramping times outside hospitals.
Last month, Health Minister Kim Hames said he was considering an overhaul of the way patients were admitted to emergency departments in a bid to cut the time ambulances spent queuing outside public hospitals waiting to hand over patients.
Instead of being looked after by paramedics while waiting for an emergency department bed, patients could be released into the care of doctors and nurses in the hospital, but outside the ED.
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Dr Hames, who is overseas, said there was no progress because the minister had been away and needed to discuss it with the Health Department.