Worst hospital waiting lists in South Australia revealed

Thousands of patients are waiting so long for surgery doctors fear the backlog will never be cleared. See SA’s worst offenders.

Exclusive: Covid’s devastating toll on public hospitals means thousands of patients are waiting so long for surgery doctors fear the backlog will never be cleared unless more hospital beds are funded.

A new report card released by the Australian Medical Association shows in 2019-20 the number of less urgent Category 3 elective surgeries, including hip and knee replacements, (must be done within 365 days) declined 15 per cent compared to 2018-19.

Average daily emergency department presentations declined from 627 to 449 – a drop of 28 per cent – before rising to finish the 2019-20 financial year 5 per cent higher than the previous year.

As of November 2021 there were more than 19,000 patients waiting for elective surgery in the state and 1823 were overdue for their surgery.

Across the nation 150,000 of the 837,000 patients admitted to public hospital waiting lists in the year to June 2021 were not treated, the report card reveals.

One in four Category 2 patients — which includes people needing cancer investigations, heart valve replacements, craniotomies for unruptured brain clots — were not treated within the recommended 90 day time frame.

One in five patients who needed Category 3 surgeries waited more than a year.

A staggering 8813 people waiting for elective surgery either died or were unable to be contacted before they had their surgery.

Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid. Picture: Supplied

AMA president Dr Omar Khorshid said governments needed to “build up the long-term capacity of the public hospital system so that it is fit for purpose as it faces a vastly different environment that the pandemic has created”.

An extra 6850 public hospital beds were required nationwide by 2024-25 just to maintain the current, lowest in 27 years, ratio of beds to those 65 years and older and federal government funding had to be lifted to 50 per cent of public hospital costs, he said.

“The human cost of delayed treatment is real and patients were already waiting, in some cases, years to access care well before this pandemic started,” he said.

Royal Adelaide Hospital Had the longest wait times for non-urgent surgery. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Brenton Edwards

Of the state’s major hospitals Royal Adelaide Hospital had the longest waiting times for non-urgent surgery like hip and knee replacements, with half the patients waiting more than 355 days for surgery in June 2020, Australian Institute of Health figures show.

At Flinders Medical Centre half the patients waited over 267 days for surgery.

The Australian Medical Association says public hospitals were in crisis because there were not enough beds available on hospital wards to admit the patients arriving at emergency departments.

Those aged over 65 are responsible for 40 per cent of public hospital activity.

However, the number of beds for every 1000 people in this aged group has been declining for 27 years.

AMA South Australia President Dr Michelle Atchison said the Report Card shows that “we have very valid reasons to worry about how our hospitals will cope when our borders open to Covid in four short weeks from now”.

“I am not at all convinced we will reach 80 per cent double-vaccination rates in many South Australian communities – especially vulnerable communities such as those with larger Aboriginal populations – by 23 November,” she said.

“So I really don’t know how our health system, our hospitals and our doctors and other health care workers will cope when the “normal” load that already has the system at breaking point is boosted by the Covid-19 cases we know will come.”

Originally published as Worst hospital waiting lists in South Australia revealed