AfterTek

In more bad news for Health Minister Bronwyn Pike, the latest hospital report shows a blow-out in the elective surgery waiting lists to 37,197 Victorians. The state’s hospitals failed half their performance benchmarks, meaning tens of thousands of patients were not given medical attention in the required periods.

The six-month update into the performance of hospitals shows the Government has failed to rein in the ballooning surgery waiting lists, despite a 2006 funding blitz designed to reduce the list ahead of last November’s state election.

Ms. Pike released the report yesterday, a month late, a day after she was attacked in State Parliament by Liberal health spokeswoman Helen Shardey, who accused her of hiding the results. “Our hospitals have performed 914,653 operations for people on elective surgery waiting lists since 1999,” Ms. Pike said yesterday. But there was little good news in the report, which showed that between July and December last year; 800 more patients than last year were now on the elective surgery waiting list, despite a $52 million pre-election spending spree by the Government.

A third of emergency patients waited more than eight hours for a bed and someone with a lab coat to help them. More than 70 per cent of urgent patients suffering blood loss or vomiting received treatment within 30 minutes, below the required minimum of 80 per cent. Hospitals were too slow moving non-admitted patients out of emergency departments, with 76 per cent staying less than four hours, compared with the required 80 per cent.

The state’s hospitals did achieve their targets for the number of times an ambulance was sent away to another hospital, but the 1.8 per cent bypass rate was still higher than the previous six-month rate of 1.3 per cent. All 3765 emergency patients requiring immediate treatment for heart failure, life-threatening injuries and drug overdoses were seen immediately.

The benchmark requiring 80 per cent of emergency patients with bone fractures or breathing problems to be seen within 10 minutes was also met. The hospitals met their benchmarks for providing elective surgery for patients whose cases are deemed to be urgent. Ms Pike said the targets were ambitious.

“There are people that wait too long, we know that, but that number as a proportion will come down because we are increasing the volume of people who are getting their surgery overall,” she said. Ms Shardey said Ms Pike was incapable of managing Victorian hospitals. “It’s the job of government to forecast demand, and it’s a failure to manage the system more than anything else,” Ms Shardey said.