Tasmania has been ranked bottom of a table for waiting times for elective surgery in public hospitals across the country.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) found the median waiting time for elective surgery in the last financial year ranged from 27 days in Queensland to 55 days in Tasmania.
In the same period, the proportion of patients who waited more than a year for surgery ranged from 0.5 per cent in Queensland to a high of 12.9 per cent in Tasmania.
That number increased from 9.6 per cent in 2010-11 to 12.9 per cent in 2014-15.
In response to the report, the Government said it had spent record amounts on health in the 2014-15 budget and was implementing reforms to cut waiting times.
Elective surgery is an operation other than emergency surgery, which is medically necessary, but can be delayed for at least 24 hours.
Hernia surgery, cataract surgery, mastectomy for breast cancer, and the donation of a kidney by a living donor are considered elective surgeries.
While most states have improved their waiting times, since 2010-11 the median waiting time for elective surgery in Tasmania increased from 38 to 55 days.
The greatest variation in median waiting times was for ophthalmology, ranging from 33 days in Victoria to 214 days in Tasmania.
Only 59 per cent of all patients were admitted within the clinically recommended time, the lowest in the nation when compared with other states which ranged between 78 and 98 per cent.
AIHW senior executive Jenny Hargreaves said several measures were used to test waiting times.
“Overall for Australia, 50 per cent of people had had their surgery within 35 days,” she said.
“For Tasmania it was longer than that, it was 55 days.”
The second measure focussed on the number of days it took for 90 per cent of people waiting to receive surgery.
“For Australia as a whole it was 253 days, for Tasmania is was longer at 424 days.”
Government defends surgery record
In a statement, Health Minister Michael Fergusson said the report showed more elective surgeries were conducted in public hospitals across the country last year than in previous years.
He said an increase in median waiting times was consistent with the Government’s policy of ensuring that the longest waiting patients were now treated.
“Many patients had waited so long for surgery that, once treated, their waiting times were large enough to skew the median wait time upwards,” he said.
“Clearing the longest waiting backlog can only be achieved by accepting a temporary increase in median wait times.”
He said his government had delivered record spending of $1.56 billion on health in 2015-16.
“The latest report from the AIHW… shows our plan is working with small but steady improvement in the rate of admissions.”
He said the Government had the important achievement of delivering treatment to Tasmanian children who had waited longer than the recommended time for elective surgery in 2014-15.
Report findings damning, nurses say
But the Nursing Federation’s Neroli Ellis said the report was damning for the state’s health system.
“Despite all the nurses and health staff working incredibly hard, the results show a complete lack of acute funded beds in the Tasmanian public health system,” she said.
She said hospitals were running at full capacity meaning surgical beds were being taken up with medical emergencies, which is leading to cardiac surgery being cancelled.
“This [report] is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
“We’ve got thousands of people waiting to see a surgeon in the outpatients department who haven’t even got onto those lists yet. It is truly very damning for our state.”
Ms Ellis said she was not surprised but she was concerned about the people who were waiting up to 424 days for surgery.
“This is absolutely due to the fact that we’ve closed down whole wards due to budget cuts,” she said.
“It is time for the current Government now to have a good look at what is happening, the demands, the throughput of our hospitals and to start putting more money into health so we can start reducing that waiting list.”
Doctors say reforms to Tasmania’s public hospital system needed
The Australian Medical Association’s Tim Greenaway said waiting times may actually be worse than those published in the report.
“The AMA has encouraged all governments to publish not only the waiting time to elective surgery, but also the waiting time to be seen by surgeons to be put on the waiting list,” he said.
“It is a marker of the strain that the public health system is under.
“It’s also a marker that we do need to proceed with the reforms to the public hospital system in Tasmania.”
He said more needed to be done to reduce waiting times.
“We’re not doing well enough and things need to change. Business as usual just will not serve the Tasmanian people well enough.”
Associate Professor Greenaway said the results reflected the fact that Tasmania had the fewest hospital beds per head of population in Australia.