Five year wait for some specialist appointments, SA Health data shows
Despite improvements to specialist wait times, new SA Health data shows they can vary dramatically depending on the hospital you attend.
SA News
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Waiting time to see a specialist — to then get put on another wait list if elective surgery is needed — stretches beyond five years in seven specialties across the metropolitan public hospital system.
The good news is these wait times are a vast improvement on recent years when the wait time for various specialists had ballooned out to more than 16 years in 2018 and was still beyond seven years for several specialties two years ago.
SA Health data also reflects the postcode lottery of the public health system — the maximum waiting time to see a gynaecologist at both the Lyell McEwin Hospital in the north and Flinders Medical Centre in the south is 44 months but at the Royal Adelaide Hospital it is just one month.
Other gaps include a maximum wait of more than five years to see a gastroenterologist at the Lyell McEwin Hospital compared to 10 months at the RAH.
People seeking specialist help for epilepsy only have the option of the RAH where the maximum wait to see a specialist is now 62 months — more than five years.
The longest wait is for a ENT consultation at the Lyell McEwin Hospital of 68 months, and the seven specialties with waits of five years or more compares to 11 the previous quarter — but it was just four the quarter before that.
Specialists with maximum waits for an appointment stretching into years depending on the hospital include ENT, endocrinology, epilepsy, gastroenterology, general surgery, immunology, neurology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, respiratory and urology.
Others with no waiting time at any hospital for a consultation include cardiothoracic, gynaecological oncology, medical oncology, radiation therapy, respiratory (cystic fibrosis) and palliative care.
SA Health noted the latest quarterly report shows 48 specialists outpatient services have reduced overall maximum wait times of between two weeks to 13 months compared with the previous report and no service had an increase of more than four months.
Chief medical officer Dr Michael Cusack said: “Our Local Health Networks have been working extremely hard to significantly reduce the backlog of those waiting for an outpatient appointment, particularly in the past 12 -18 months.
“While demand remains high across the public health system, we know our hospitals are still continuing to make inroads in patients being seen more quickly.
“The five specialty outpatient clinics with the longest maximum wait times are all conducting administrative and clinical audits to accurately reflect people who are still waiting for an appointment.
Individual hospitals are also working to recruit in areas where staff shortages may have contributed to increases in certain specialties and are exploring how new pathways could be introduced to improve wait times.”
The long waits for some appointments comes as the ongoing cancellation of some elective surgery to free up hospital beds and cut pressure on emergency departments and ambulance ramping means the separate elective surgery wait list has blown out.
As of Sunday there were 21,898 people listed as ready for elective surgery, and 4482 listed as overdue.
When the Sunday Mail first revealed the existence of a “hidden” list of people waiting years for an outpatient specialist appointment back in 2009, then-Labor health minister John Hill responded by saying: “You just cannot believe everything that’s in the newspaper.”
The Sunday Mail had Dr James Katsaros, the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s then-director of plastic and reconstructive surgery print out the list of people waiting for an appointment for the speciality at the RAH, including people who had been waiting for more than a decade. The paper trail was so long Dr Katsaros had to stand on a chair to fully display it.
SA Health has published the information since 2018, fulfilling an election pledge by the then-Liberal government and continued by Labor.
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