The agonising two-year wait for surgery uncovered as hidden hospital waiting lists revealed
Thousands of patients are dying as elective surgery lists reach a crisis point. Today, News Corp unveils a new way to beat the queue. TRY OUR ONLINE TOOL TO FIND OUT THE WAIT TIME AT YOUR HOSPITAL
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Exclusive: A massive 48 per cent blowout in waiting times for elective surgery is seeing thousands of patients dying before they get surgery while others are waiting over two years for treatment.
Waiting times for elective surgery in public hospitals are now at the highest level since records began in 2001-02 with half of all patients waiting at least 40 days for treatment, up from 27 days sixteen years ago and up from 36 days in 2013-14.
Before they even make it onto the surgery waiting lists many patients have waited over 440 days just to get an appointment with a hospital specialist — the first step towards getting on the waiting list.
This means from the time their GP recommends them for surgery it can be two years or more before they have the operation.
Some of the longest waits in the country are:
* 476 days at Bunbury Hospital in Western Australia for tonsillectomies
* 384 day wait for knee replacements at Flinders Medical Centre in South Australia.
* 353 day wait for a hip replacement at Goulburn Hospital in NSW
* 326 day wait for a knee replacement at Western Hospital in Victoria
* 360 day wait for a hip replacement at Flinders Medical Centre
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What most Australians don’t realise is that waiting times vary enormously at hospitals around the country with queues as low as zero days for some procedures at some hospitals while at others, wait times are over a year.
Today News Corp provides its readers with a tool that can help them navigate the system and find the public hospitals with the shortest waiting times using information from the government’s My Hospitals website.
All you have to do is enter the type of procedure you need into the search engine and it will show you the hospitals with the shortest wait times below.
Hospital spending has opened up as a major election battleground with Labor offering a $2.8 billion Better Hospitals Fund and promising to lift federal public funding from 45 to 50 per cent of public hospital budgets.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has also pledged $500 million to slash cancer surgery waiting lists and $250 million to cut waiting lists for other procedures.
The Coalition is promising to cover 45 per cent of public hospital budgets and will fund a $1.25 billion Community Health and Hospitals Program, which includes cancer treatment, rural health and hospital infrastructure, drug and alcohol treatment, preventive, primary and chronic disease management and mental health.
A report card by the AMA supplied exclusively to News Corp shows one million people requiring urgent surgery in public hospitals were waiting longer than clinically recommended.
“Compared to last year, elective surgery admissions per 1000 population actually went backwards by 1.5 per cent nationally, and backwards in every jurisdiction bar two,” said AMA president Tony Bartone.
A News Corp investigation has found thousands of people are dying before they get the surgery they need, with more than 8200 people removed from the waiting lists because they died or were not contactable.
NSW: HOSPITAL WAIT TIMES
At Goulburn Hospital in NSW half of all patients are waiting over 353 days for a total hip replacement while at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital the wait is just 12 days.
At Broken Hill half of all patients are waiting over 368 days for a knee replacement while at Royal Prince Alfred the wait is just 20 days.
At Royal North Shore Hospital and Nepean Hospital in Sydney half of all patients are waiting 356 days for a tonsillectomy while at Concord hospital the wait is just 36 days.
Half of all patients at Manning Hospital in NSW are waiting over 346 days for cataract surgery while the wait at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is just 8 days.
LONGEST WAIT
*HIP REPLACEMENT Goulburn Hospital 353 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Broken Hill Hospital 368 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Royal North Shore Hospital 356 days
*CATARACT Manning Hospital 346 days
SHORTEST WAIT
*HIP REPLACEMENT Royal Prince Alfred 12 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Royal Prince Alfred 20 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Concord hospital 36 days
*CATARACT Royal Prince Alfred 8 days
VICTORIA: HOSPITAL WAIT TIMES
Western Hospital in Melbourne has wait times of over 241 days for hip replacements while Box Hill Hospital has wait times of just 47 days.
At Western Hospital in Melbourne half of all patients wait over 326 days for a knee replacement while at Box Hill Hospital the wait is just 47 days.
Half of all patients wait 224 days for a tonsillectomy at Sunshine Hospital while at Bendigo Hospital the wait is just 13 days.
At Royal Melbourne Hospital half of all patients waited 146 days for cataract surgery while the West Gippsland Healthcare Group has no wait.
LONGEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT Western Hospital 241 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Western Hospital 326 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Sunshine Hospital 224 days
*CATARACT Royal Melbourne Hospital 146 days
SHORTEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT Box Hill Hospital 47 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Box Hill Hospital 47 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Bendigo Hospital 13 days
*CATARACT West Gippsland Healthcare Group 0 days
QLD: HOSPITAL WAIT TIMES
At Toowoomba and Logan Hospitals in Queensland over half of all patients wait over 317 days for a hip replacement while at Princess Alexandra Hospital the wait time is 43 days.
At Logan Hospital in Queensland half of all patients wait over 358 days for a knee replacement while at Maryborough Hospital the wait is 90 day.
At Mackay Base Hospital and Logan Hospital in Queensland half of all patients are waiting over 359 days for a tonsillectomy while Gympie Hospital has no wait time.
At the Mater in Brisbane half of all patients wait over 313 days for cataract surgery while the Thursday Island Hospital has no wait time.
LONGEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT Toowoomba and Logan Hospitals 317 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Logan Hospital 358 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Mackay Base Hospital 359 days
*CATARACT Mater 313 days
SHORTEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT Princess Alexandra Hospital 43 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Maryborough Hospital 90 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Gympie Hospital 0 days
*CATARACT Thursday Island Hospital 0 days
SA: HOSPITAL WAIT TIMES
Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide had the country’s longest wait for hip replacements with half of all patients waiting over 360 days for surgery while Mount Gambier and Districts Health Service has a wait time of just 3 days.
Flinders Medical Centre has the longest wait times in the country for knee surgery with half of all patients waiting over 384 days for surgery while at Mount Gambier the wait time was just 4 days.
The Repatriation General Hospital in South Australia has a wait time of 352 days for cataract surgery while at Port Pirie regional health service, the wait is just 14 days.
At Modbury Hospital half of all patients wait more than 349 days for a tonsillectomy while at Mount Gambier and Districts health the wait is just one day.
LONGEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT Flinders Medical Centre 360 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Flinders Medical Centre 384 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Modbury Hospital 349 days
*CATARACT Repatriation General Hospital 352 days
SHORTEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT Mount Gambier and Districts Hospital 3 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Mount Gambier and Districts Hospital 4 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Mount Gambier and Districts Hospital 1 day
*CATARACT Port Pirie Regional health service 14 days
TAS: HOSPITAL WAIT TIMES
North West Regional hospital has the longest wait for hip replacements with half of all patients waiting over 158 days for the surgery while at Launceston Hospital the wait is 144 days.
At Launceston Hospital more than half the patients who need a knee replacement wait 260 days while at Royal Hobart Hospital the wait is just 172 days.
At Royal Hobart Hospital half the patients wait over 114 days for a tonsillectomy while at Launceston General Hospital the wait is 27 days.
At Mersey Community Hospital half the patients wait over 173 days for cataract surgery while at Launceston General Hospital the wait is just 93 days.
LONGEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT North West Regional Hospital 158 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Launceston Hospital 260 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Royal Hobart Hospital 114 days
*CATARACT Mersey Community Hospital 173 days
SHORTEST WAITS
*HIP REPLACEMENT Launceston Hospital 144 days
*KNEE REPLACEMENT Royal Hobart Hospital 172 days
*TONSILLECTOMY Launceston Hospital 27 days
*CATARACT Launceston Hospital 93 days
Dr Bartone said waiting lists are so dire because hospitals are not getting enough funding to cope with increasing demand.
“Hospitals are facing triple whammy. The population is growing, the age of the population is higher and the complexity of health conditions is greater,” he said.
The AMA report card shows a bed shortage is causing the problem. People aged over 65 now make up 40 per cent of hospital episodes, an increase from 37 per cent in 2009-10.
However the number of hospital beds per 1,000 people aged over 65 has fallen from 16.9 to 16.6.
Australian Health and Hospitals Association CEO Alison Vehoeven said money alone would not solve the waiting list problem unless it was tied to states meeting targets to reduce waiting times as happened successfully between 2007-2015.
NSW AMA president Dr Kean-Seng Lim said official data did not even properly measure waiting times because the clock did not start until a patient first got an appointment with a specialist at a hospital.
“If you are waiting to be seen by a public hospital for one year before you get on the waiting list that hidden waiting should be counted,” he said.
Consumer’s Health Forum chief Leanne Wells said the length and variation in hospital waiting lists for elective surgery is a concern and we need better primary health care to prevent the need for surgery.
“We need more investment in the public sector along with a change in public hospital processes that allows people to find and access hospitals with shorter queues. A tool that helps people find them is an important first step,” she said.
HOW TO BEAT THE WAITING LIST
Patients who want to beat the hospital waiting list queues can use the tool to find the hospitals in their city with the shortest waiting times and ask their GP to refer them to a specialist who works at that hospital.
In some states local authorities may try to discourage patients from using hospitals outside their direct local area.
However, doctors told News Corp Australia it was possible to work around this.
GPs can give the patients a private referral to a specialist who works at these public hospitals.
The patient would pay a fee for their initial consultation with that specialist who would then put them on their surgery list as a public patient.
This could leave the patient with an initial out pocket expense of around $100 to see the specialist.