Elective surgery wait times in Queensland are now the shortest in the country, according to an annual report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The average national wait time has held steady at 36 days for four years but the delay in Queensland dropped to 27 days over the past financial year.
Labor has only been in power for a third of the 2014/15 year but State Health Minister Cameron Dick was quick to take credit for the improvement.
“Look, this is great work by our staff and hospital and health services and shows a reward for the investment our government has made in front line service delivery,” Mr Dick said.
“When we came to government we found 100,000 people were waiting longer than clinically recommended for specialist outpatient appointments, for example, and that’s now down to 82,000. So we’ve reduced that considerably … it’s an investment of funds and working with people.”
State Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg insisted the result was driven by the LNP government before it lost power in February.
“We had the best waiting time for elective surgery in Australia when we were in office,” Mr Springborg said.
“And indeed when we were in office there were 6,485 people waiting longer than clinically recommended; when we left office it was 73.
“You’d never, ever seen that sort of turn around.”
Indigenous patients wait longer
Almost 700,000 people received elective surgery across the country during the past financial year, and the number of admissions from waiting lists continued to grow.
Patients who needed ear, nose and throat, orthopaedic and ophthalmology surgery had the longest waits at between 64 and 73 days on average.
The number of people waiting more than a year for surgery continued a steady decline to be at less than two per cent.
The figures also showed indigenous patients waited slightly longer than other Australians.