Health system lags nation
TASMANIAN public hospital patients face longer waits for both emergency and elective treatment and suffer more adverse outcomes than patients interstate.
The Productivity Commission’s Annual Report on Government Services compared state health systems and painted a bleak and worsening picture of Tasmania’s hospitals.
The report found that 52 per cent of category-one patients faced waits of more than the recommended 30 days in 2019-20. In 2015-16, the figure was 16.1 per cent. And 75 per cent of category-two patients faced waits of longer than the recommended 90 days, up from 41 per cent.
Category-three patients waited more than a year in 43 per cent of cases, up from 9 per cent.
has the highest proportion of category-one patients in the nation, with 8.2 per cent of patients, compared with 2.2 per cent in New South Wales. The proportion of category-two patients was around the national average, while the number of category-three patients was below that in other states.
In emergency departments, the state had the worst performance in the nation, with just 66 per cent of emergency patients receiving care on time. Results for urgent, semi-urgent and non urgent cases were slightly better.
In 2018, Tasmania had the highest number of separations with an adverse event in the nation – almost 20 per cent worse than the national average – including the highest rates of misadventures to patients during surgical and medical care and the highest rates of procedures causing abnormal reactions or complications and the highest number of falls resulting in patient harm.
The report noted high rates of unplanned readmission rates for many procedures.
A Tasmanian public hospital patient who undergoes an appendectomy is 37 per cent more likely to require unplanned readmission after surgery than the national average, 78 per cent more likely if they have undergone cataract surgery, 86 per cent more likely after a hip replacement and 93 per cent more likely after a hysterectomy.
Other adverse outcomes three patient suicides 2018-19.
Health Minister Sarah Courtney said the last year had been a chalTasmania included in
lenge during COVID, but said there were positives to celebrate.
“Tasmania has the second-highest rate of full-time-equivalent public hospital staff in Australia, behind only the Northern Territory,” she said. “Tasmania’s rate of participation in breast cancer screening was also the highest of any state or territory in 2018-19, and almost 10 per cent above the national average.”
And immunisation rates are high. Ms Courtney said the 2020-21 state budget included an extra $45.5m over 18 months for elective surgery, which will help reduce waiting times and bring down the waiting list.
The RoGS report into primary care showed that Tasmanians had among the nation’s highest spending per capita on general practitioners, with $406 spent by the
Commonwealth per person per year. Tasmanians went to the doctor slightly less than the average, with 6.2 visits per person per year – with 8.3 per cent of people saying they hesitated to attend or did not attend because of the cost, a rate twice the national average.
The number of GPs was 105 per 100,000 people in 2019, about 10 per cent below the national average.
The state had more dentists per person than the national average, but fewer occupational therapists and psychologists.
Tasmania’s suicide rate was the second-highest in the nation – 50 per cent higher than the national average – the second-highest rate of daily smoking and the highest rate of obesity.