SA medical waiting lists plunge from 16 to seven years

Patients can still expect to wait years for some treatments despite a dramatic cut in staggering hospital and doctor waiting lists.

Patients are waiting years with painful, debilitating conditions to see public hospital specialists — then face a separate long queue if they need elective surgery.

Latest quarterly data shows wait times just for an appointment stretching beyond seven years for some conditions.

Gastroenterology, urology, orthopaedics, plastic surgery, ear nose and throat and ophthalmology are among specialties where the maximum wait for an appointment at most hospitals for routine and non-urgent patients stretches beyond four years.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners SA & NT chair Dr Sian Goodson.

The longest maximum wait is for an ophthalmology appointment at Flinders Medical Centre, at 90 months, followed by urology at FMC at 89 months then gastroenerolgy also at FMC at 86 months. All have worsened since the previous data was released last year.

But the figures are an improvement on wait times in excess of 16 years seen when the Liberal government was elected in 2018 and took action to cut the lists.

There are ways to cut years off the wait time.

One is to see a specialist privately, either using private health insurance or simply paying for it.

However, for those who cannot afford it, getting a GP to refer the patient to a different hospital can shave more than four years off the wait time — but this hinges on hospitals accepting patients from outside their area.

Royal Australian College of GPs SA chair Dr Sian Goodson said patients with long waits often come back asking their GPs to send letters to expedite their appointments.

“Occasionally they may ask for referrals to a different public hospital but often if they are not in the right catchment those get rejected anyway,” she said.

“Plus wait times are not usually very transparent so we don’t always know where the shorter times are at different hospitals.”

Southern suburbs residents in particular face extended waits for an outpatient appointment, with FMC having considerably longer maximum waits for many specialties than other metropolitan hospitals.

Cardiology shows the waiting list lottery depending on where you live: the maximum wait for an appointment at the QEH is four months, while at the RAH it is 56 months, at FMC 19 months and at Lyell McEwin it is 20 months.

Among big improvements, neurosurgery at FMC is now down to 55 months for an appointment compared to 126 months in 2018 — although it is just six months at the RAH.

Patients who do finally get seen, then are told they need elective surgery, face more waiting — as of Friday there were 18,359 patients listed as ready for elective surgery in the metropolitan public system, which included 3611 listed as being overdue.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Michael Cusack has implemented a $1.5m overhaul of the system including asking GPs to audit all patients who have been waiting three years or longer to see if they still need the surgery — or are still alive — in an effort to clear the backlog.

It includes checking which patients who would benefit from alternative treatment such as physiotherapy, a focus on alternative care pathways and putting patients back in GP care after a specialist consultation rather than clogging the system with ongoing outpatient reviews.

Health minister Chris Picton. Picture: David Mariuz

Shadow minister for Health Ashton Hurn. Picture: Emma Brasier

Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said: “These wait time blowouts go hand-in-hand with record ramping where patients are regularly forced to wait more than 24 hours for a bed.

“Ramping has skyrocketed by 135 per cent on Peter Malinauskas’ watch and his failure to fix it, as he promised, is having crushing consequences for our health system and unfortunately South Australians are paying the price.

“Because of Labor’s mismanagement, people in pain are being forced to wait extraordinary lengths of time – years in some cases – just to be assessed and meanwhile our health system continues to deteriorate.

Let’s not forget when Labor left office in 2018, some patients were stranded on wait lists for 16 years. The former Liberal Government untangled this mess, making huge inroads to ensure patients were seen quickly, bit it’s clear Peter Malinauskas is unravelling all that hard work.”

Health Minister Chris Picton said: “Despite what we have inherited it is positive that more outpatient clinics have seen improvements than declines over the past quarter.

“While there’s clearly more work to do, the fact the majority of clinics saw times reducing shows some progress being made in tackling the long term problems.”

Flinders Medical Centre. Picture: Matt Loxton

‘Health equity’ a mirage in south

Southern suburbs residents are waiting years for an appointment with some specialists while residents in other parts of the city can walk straight in for an appointment.

The postcode prejudice comes despite SA Health’s vision, mission and values statement declaring it values “equity in health care provision and health outcomes.”

As well as having the state’s top three worst maximum waiting times for outpatient appointments – for ophthalmology, urology and gastroenterology which are getting worse compared to the previous quarter – Flinders Medical Centre has vastly longer maximum waits for many specialties than other metropolitan hospitals.

For respiratory medicine, the maximum wait to be seen at FMC is 51 months compared to no waiting time at Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Other specialties where people directed to FMC – which runs one wait list over multiple sites – face considerably longer waits compared to other hospitals include:

RHEUMATOLOGY: 50 months compared to three months at the RAH;

REHABILITATION MEDICINE: 42 months compared to no wait at the QEH;

NEUROSURGERY: 55 months compared to six at the RAH;

GYNAECOLOGY: 50 months compared to five at the RAH;

VASCULAR SURGERY: 55 months compared to eight at the QEH;

DERMATOLOGY: 33 months compared to 11 at the RAH;

GENERAL MEDICINE: 19 months compared to two at Modbury;

INFECTIOUS DISEASES: 24 months compared to no wait at the QEH, one month at RAH and two months at Lyell McEwin.

In areas including geriatrics and ear, nose and throat, FMC had significantly shorter wait times than other adult hospitals.

Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn called on the government to “clear up this postcode prejudice.”

“The disparity is absolutely alarming for those in the southern suburbs,” she said. “We know that Flinders Medical Centre is currently suffering with the record ramping – and that because of Peter Malinauskas’s failure to improve the situation and fix it like he promised – people are in pain and South Australians are paying the price.”

Health Minister Chris Picton said maximum and median wait times at FMC declined across more outpatient clinics compared to those that saw an increase in wait times, noting there was a $400m state and federal government plan to expand services at FMC and the Repat.

“Wait times for geriatric medicine appointments at FMC have significantly declined, with maximum wait times reduced by 37 months since March 2022 – a 90 per cent decrease since coming to government,” he said, adding that the maximum wait for a medical oncology consultation at FMC fell from 38 months to one month since March 2022, while pain management fell from 32 months to nine month.