Hospital results bad news for state

TEN per cent of Tasmanians who presented to emergency departments last year had to wait more than 22 hours and 44 minutes to be admitted, a national health report has revealed.

This was almost twice the wait of the national average of 10 per cent of patients.

The shocking statistics will be released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) which also revealed that the median waiting time for elective surgery was the worst in the nation at 57 days.

The report found that 72 per cent of patients who presented to an emergency department in a Tasmanian public hospital – and were admitted – waited more than four hours. The national average was 53 per cent.

The average patient who was admitted stayed in hospital for an average of six hours and 24 minutes, which was two hours longer than the national average.

But those who presented and were not admitted stayed for a median time of two hours and 26 minutes, which was in line with the national average.

Minister for Health Sarah Courtney said too many emergency department presentations are waiting longer than necessary “due to bed block”.

“From next year we will open an additional 44 beds at the RHH’s new state-of-the-art redevelopment, a project that will provide world-class facilities to support our clinicians to provide even better care,” Ms Courtney said.

Tasmania also rated poorly when it came to elective surgery waiting times.

Half of the patients who were on a waiting list for elective surgery had to wait more than 57 days to be admitted for their awaited procedure. The fastest time for 50 per cent of patients to have elective surgery was in Victoria at 28 days.

And 29 per cent of those on a Category 1 elective surgery waiting list were not admitted within the clinically recommended time of 30 days. This was the only figure in the nation that was more than 14 per cent. The average overdue wait time for those Tasmanian patients was 58 days.

More than 55 per cent of Tasmanians in Category 2 — with a clinically recommended wait time of 90 days – waited an average of 125 days more, again the worst in the country.