Theatre meeting demand

A Victorian Auditor-General’s Office has made recommendations for hospitals to improve operating theatre efficiency and access to surgery for patients.

The report found that many operating theatres across the state were under utilised and therefore the cost rations were high.

However, the report determined that while there was limited spare theatre capacity in metropolitan hospitals, there was spare capacity in regional hospitals.

West Gippsland Healthcare Group chief executive officer Dan Weeks said recent data indicated West Gippsland Hospital’s two operating theatres were meeting waiting lists and demand.

While the VAGO report focussed on both metropolitan and regional hospitals, Mr Weeks said the structure of theatre operations at West Gippsland Hospital were different to bigger hospitals.

Mr Weeks said the focus of the report was making maximum use out of operating theatres.

With only two operating theatres, he said WGH did not have the same efficiency issues.

“Our issue is always around capacity, especially when we do so many births.

“Making sure we make good use of our theatres is important,” he said.

Mr Weeks said metropolitan hospitals often had to schedule weekend and evening surgeries to maximise the efficiency of their theatres.

“We don’t do a lot of emergency surgery. We tend to structure our elective surgery on a five day a week roster,” he said.

Mr Weeks said in the event of an emergency Caesarean delivery, there was usually time to rearrange theatre lists.

He said in the event there was not time, there was scope to perform an emergency in another area – although the situation had not arisen.

Mr Weeks said WGH also faced different pressures. He said the surgical lists were largely performed by visiting surgeons who worked pretty tight rosters.

If a surgeon was to cancel a list for illness or other reason, he said the hospital would be unable to fill that list like bigger hospitals do.

Mr Weeks said the latest performance data released at the end of June showed incredible results for elective surgery waiting lists.

Data showed the number of category one patients on the waiting list at the end of June was half that of the previous year, dropping from 18 to nine.

The median time of patients waiting for elective surgery was reduced from 35 days at the end of June last year to 24 days this year.

“To get 2640 elective surgery cases done was a great result,” he said.

Works on a third theatre are scheduled for the new year after the healthcare group secured funding for the project earlier this year.

Mr Weeks said the project was currently in the design stage.