Demand impacts hospital wait list
CAIRNS Hospital’s infamous “waiting list for the waiting list” worsened in the past 12 months, despite improvements in overall health service delivery.
The Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service’s annual report, released yesterday, shows strong growth in demand for services in the Far North.
Emergency presentations, overnight admissions, sameday admission and outpatient clinics attendances all rose.
A total 158,739 people sought help at the hospital’s emergency department, with the number of patients admitted increasing by 6 per cent from the previous year.
The number of outpatient clinic attendances rose from 14 per cent to 257,099.
The percentage of elective surgery patients treated within the clinically recommended time was 97 per cent.
But, there were drops in the percentages of patients on the specialist outpatients list – known as the waiting list for the waiting list – who are being seen within recommended times.
In 2014/15 36 per cent of category 2 patients were being seen within the recommended time of 90 days.
Last financial year however, only 33.5 per cent of category 2 patients were being seen within the same time frame.
There was also a decrease in category 1 (30 days) patients, and a small improvement of 3 per cent in category 3 patients waiting more than 365 days.
Cairns MP Rob Pyne said he regularly met constituents who were waiting years on the specialist outpatient waiting list.
“This includes people who have needed knee replacements, who have had to wait a very long amount of time,” he said.
“I had one gentleman, who needed a hernia operated on, and he had to actually give up his job until he could get his hernia fixed so he could go back to work.”
He said he was concerned that with the health service’s forecast $80 million deficit for 2016/17, service delivery would suffer further.
“We’ve seen increase in expenditure and we’ve still not made enough headway here,” he said.
CHHHS chief executive Clare Douglas said the Cairns community had received great care from the hospital and the team who worked there.
“Patient care is our core focus and we continue to deliver high-quality health services to the community,” she said.
CAIRNS Hospital has played host to an Australian-first operation that is promising to revolutionise the treatment of heart attack victims.
The hospital is one of five across the nation chosen to take part in a global clinical trial of a dissolvable stent to treat patients suffering coronary artery disease.
Other heart clinics joining the trial are in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide.
The Biosolve-IV stent, designed by German-based company Biotronik, is made from magnesium alloy that dissolves within the human body in 12-24 months.
Cairns Hospital cardiologist Dr Greg Starmer said the revolutionary stent was successfully implanted into a patient from Ravenshoe and one from Cooktown in the past two weeks.
“Both patients were doing very well and both procedures were very successful,” he said.
“There were no complications at all and both were very happy to be home.
“They were a single overnight stay in hospital, home the next day.”
Traditional stents, small mesh tubes used to treat nar- row or weak arteries, are designed to remain inside the human body indefinitely.
Dr Starmer said all patients with stents were required to take medication.
“When you stop the medication, there’s always the possibility – because the stent’s still there – of them blocking and renarrowing,” he said.
“The dissolvable stent, the theory is that when it’s gone, you remove some of those issues you might have with re-narrowing or blocking up again.”
The clinical trial will run for five years, after which it is expected to be widely used across Australia.