SA’s Covid elective surgery freeze to be discussed at top level meeting on Friday

The number of patients waiting for elective surgery in our public hospitals has surged by 50 per cent since a Covid ban – a top doctor says it’s a “sledgehammer”.

Anaesthetist Dr Ivan Ward said the state government has taken a “sledgehammer" approach to banning elective surgeries.

Overdue elective surgeries in the public hospital system have surged by more than 1100 in the past month but Premier Steven Marshall will only lift a ban on procedures “when safe to do so”.

An SA Health dashboard shows there were 3176 overdue procedures in Adelaide’s public health system as of Tuesday, up from 2010 on December 28 when the state government announced it was going to suspend some operations as part of the state’s Covid response.

The state government temporarily banned all non-urgent elective procedures across public and private hospitals on January 3 to free up resources.

Mr Marshall said easing the elective surgery freeze would be discussed at a meeting on Friday.

“The last time we lifted it in a sort of graduated way … at the moment we are looking at some information that will provide advice on the best way to go about it this time,” he said.

“Certainly it is my intention to return elective surgery as soon as it’s safe to do so.

“We know that for many people, it’s not particularly elective. They want to get that surgery as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton

SA Premier Steven Marshall

Anaesthetist Dr Ivan Ward called on the government to put forward a plan to “deal with the backlog” of surgeries.

“There is a range of patients who are having harm done to them by not having their operation,” he said, adding that many nurses were being “under-utilised” in the private hospital system.

“The current surgical limitation is a sledgehammer, they could’ve used a more refined and nuanced approach to achieve their goals.”

Opposition Health spokesman Chris Picton said 3176 overdue surgeries is an “awful new record” for SA and showed that the government had not properly prepared for border openings on November 23.

“The public figures also are only part of the picture – because the Marshall government has also banned most surgery in private hospitals as well, meaning many thousands of South Australians have been impacted who need operations,” he said.

“Steven Marshall specifically promised before he opened the borders that we wouldn’t have to see elective surgery bans, but that sadly wasn’t true and patients are paying the price.”

But a government spokesperson hit back, saying the pandemic had put unprecedented pressures on the system.

“We have come a long way since the pre-Covid crisis days of the former Labor government when, in 2017, Labor stopped elective surgery to ease pressure on our hospitals – and there was no pandemic,” they said.

“But now we are in a pandemic and like most states, we have curtailed elective surgery to deal with the Omicron wave.

“That pause will be lifted as soon as safely possible. In the meantime, Labor continues to play politics with the pandemic.”