Healthcare on track
Hospitals report patient care in recommended times
Both the Townsville and North West hospital and health services are claiming improvements in service despite ever-increasing numbers of patients.
“Townsville University Hospital continues to prioritise the most acutely unwell patients as we work through wait lists and manage sustained levels of high demand on all areas of our health service,” THHS chief executive Kieran Keyes said.
“Providing quality healthcare in one of the largest and most diverse areas in our state can be a challenge but these are promising results and show our teams are looking after record numbers of North Queenslanders.”
THHS said there had again been an increase in emergency patients, with 35,656 attendances – 391 presentations a day – in the first quarter of 2024, compared to 34,714 in the previous quarter.
“More than 79 per cent of patients presenting to Townsville EDS were seen within clinically recommended times, and the median waiting time for treatment was 12 minutes,” a spokesman said.
“One hundred per cent of category 1 patients were seen within the clinically recommended time frame.”
They said that in the March quarter, it treated 2020 elective surgery patients and performed 1614 emergency surgeries.
“There has been a reduction in the median number of days patients are waiting for category 1 and 2 elective surgeries at (THHS).”
Mr Keyes said it was looking forward to even greater patient outcomes as it delivered the $530m expansion of the “bigger and better” TUH to cater to the growing community.
Between January and March, 14,684 patients sought care at North West Health’s ED, with almost 86 per cent of patients receiving care within clinically recommended times.
A spokesman said that a total of 160 elective surgery patients were treated across NWHHS facilities across all categories in the March quarter, a 7.4 per cent increase on the previous quarter.
Despite the increase in patients requiring elective surgery, 93.1 per cent of patients were still treated within recommended time frames.
NWHHS chief executive Sean Birgan said the median wait time for emergency presentations was 13 minutes, with 86 per cent of patients receiving care within recommended time frames.