NSW Hospital wait times: Western Sydney patients waiting 300 days for surgery
Outraged senior staff at a major western Sydney hospital have handed the NSW Government 13 reasons why their hospital is failing to support patients as surgery wait times reach extreme lengths.
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Waitlists for elective surgery in southwest Sydney have blown out with people languishing in the queue for 14 times longer than those undergoing procedures in inner Sydney as doctors issue an urgent plea for help — warning they are unable to deliver critical services.
Senior doctors at Liverpool Hospital have issued a dire warning that current funding and resources are “inadequate to meet the needs” of patients, calling for the introduction of a head of birthing unit to “prevent further events” of neonatal death, as well as funding to improve emergency surgery provisions for endoscopic services, emergency radiology, and cancer diagnosis.
The health crisis means Liverpool Hospital now has the worst wait times for elective surgery of any hospital in the state.
Patients must wait 310 days for their procedure at Liverpool Hospital while those at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in inner Sydney are operated on in just 22 days.
The hospital’s executive team of medical staff said they were hamstrung by inadequate radiology services meaning ultrasounds cannot be conducted after office hours, while a single CT scanner was available to staff over the weekend.
THE GREAT DIVIDE — SYDNEY’S HEALTH CRISIS
Part One: south west patients funded $800 less per person than Sydney residents
Part Two: south west patients forced to travel hours for treatment
Part Three: leaders are calling for a new hospital at Aerotropolis
Part Four: 24,000 new medical students needed to fight west’s growth
Part Five: Patients waiting 300 days for surgery in south west Sydney
Part Six: south west teens shock youth suicide numbers as specialist staff numbers revealed
“Every year it gets worse, as the gap between our lean resources and the relentless growth in health service needs widens,” the doctors said. “There is no fat in our system, our belt cannot be tightened.”
The executive team of medical staff, which includes associate professor Miriam Levy and several department heads said unfair funding models meant there were “no remaining funds to manage actual growth” — telling the inquiry no enhancements in clinical services can be approved.
“We are in a phase of consolidation meaning none of the agreed critical priorities can be funded, none at all,” Prof Levy said.
Doctors also raised the alarm over haemodialysis services, revealing they are forced to send patients to other hospitals for kidney dialysis due to a lack of available chairs as part of a list of 13 reasons why “safe access to
quality care” can’t be provided. The list also highlighted insufficient emergency surgery resources and “significant shortfalls in the junior medical staff number” which result in them fleeing to other hospitals for pathways into surgical training.
Concerns around a lack of access to interpreters for the non-English speaking community was also raised in the submission by the senior clinicians.
The disparities between health services between the western suburbs and the city also extended to emergency department wait times.
Analysis of NSW Bureau of Health Information for October to December 2019 reveals an average of 40 per cent of hospital patients living in Sydney’s west — more than 20,000 patients — are spending four hours or more in emergency departments awaiting treatment, while around 26 per cent of eastern suburbs and north shore patients experience the same length of extended wait times.
A South West Sydney Local Health District spokeswoman said comparisons of surgery activity between individual LHDs do not “fully appreciate a range of factors such as staffing and specialty mix, number of hospitals in any individual LHD, complexity of case loads and services provided to other organisations”.
“The Bureau of Health Information results for the quarter found 100 per cent of
the 1192 urgent procedures were performed were done so in the clinically recommended
time frame (350 days),” the spokeswoman said.
“There are many factors which influence a patient’s time spent on a waiting list however it is
clinicians who recommends which category a patient is assigned to.
“Should a patient’s condition deteriorate, they can and are advanced for surgery.”
The spokeswoman said the local health district will benefit from a $2.8 billion plan to introduce a further 8300 frontline health staff.
A spokeswoman for Minister Brad Hazzard said people in western and south west Sydney are “more likely to wait longer in the emergency department due to the number of patients presenting”.
“People in western Sydney are also more likely to visit an emergency department for non-life threatening health issues, meaning they will wait longer.
“Everybody is triaged according to their specific health needs.”
Southwest Sydney hospital patient, Cheryl Roberts, said despite her 30-year history working in the health industry, she was “completely unaware of extreme wait times” until she was forced to join the queue.
The 60-year-old Picton woman said she has been waiting 15 months for a hip replacement in the South West Sydney Local Health District Hospital network — with no set date for surgery in sight.
“I constantly call the hospital to find out if I have been bumped up and the physiotherapist keeps in contact to manage the pain,” she said.
“I am on medication because it is extremely difficult to walk — I struggle to do daily chores like getting in and out of a car or having a bath. I try to keep active and fit but it is painful.”
She said her 83-year-old mother was on the same list and “struggling to cope with the pain”.
It is a nightmare waiting game, but we wouldn’t be able to afford the $20,000 bill to have the surgery done privately.
AVERAGE ELECTIVE SURGERY WAIT TIMES – FOR BREAKOUT
Southwest Sydney patients experienced 291.8 days waiting for non-urgent surgery.
Nepean-Blue Mountains patients waited an average of 260.5 days.
Western Sydney patients endured an average of 225.6 days waiting for a call.
South Eastern Sydney patients experienced a 253.3 day wait.
Patients on the north shore were only forced to wait 171.3 days for the same surgery.
Meanwhile, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, hospitals in the Sydney Local Health District averaged 110 days for non-urgent surgery.