Vital surgery delayed as staff shortages continue to impact Qld hospitals

Hundreds of category 1 elective operations – which need to be provided within 30 days to avoid a patient quickly deteriorating – have been pushed back as Queensland hospitals struggle to cope with the affects of a two-pronged attack on their resources.

Some of the most urgent elective surgery has had to be rescheduled as the state’s under-pressure hospitals made room for Covid-positive patients while also dealing with not enough staff.

The Courier-Mail can reveal 405 category 1 elective operations – which need to be provided within 30 days to avoid a patient quickly deteriorating – have been postponed since January 8 this year.

Of these, 64 were because a patient had either tested positive or been deemed a close contact.

However 29 were because a doctor had contracted Covid-19 or was a close contact and there’s an unknown number who couldn’t be operated on because there weren’t enough ICU beds.

There’s also an unknown number of operations that didn’t go ahead because of limited inpatient beds which is understood to have been more of an issue in Cairns, Gold Coast and Metro South where there were disproportionate numbers of Covid inpatients.

Gold Coast is one of the Queensland locations with a more disproportionate number of Covid inpatients. Picture: Nigel Hallett

Examples of category 1 elective surgery includes some neonatal operations, the excision of cancerous skin lesions, prostate biopsies and some limb amputations.

There were also 832 category 2 and 628 category 3 operations that have been rescheduled during the same time period.

The revelation comes after Health Minister Yvette D’Ath revealed on January 8 that category 2 and 3 elective operations would be postponed until March 1 to help the health system cope with a surge in capacity amid the Omicron wave.

But Queensland Health chief operating officer Shaun Drummond this week couldn’t say whether they would restart in a month because authorities were still calculating the trajectory of Covid-19 cases.

Health Minister Yvette D'Ath announced the postponement of category 2 and 3 surgery until March. Picture: Adam Head

“At the moment we’re running (around) 800 patients with Covid-19 activity,” he said.

“When you consider the staff furloughing we’re at a fairly steady state right now.

“When we start seeing a sustained reduction then we can cautiously start bringing in category 2 and then phasing back in category 3.

“If we will be back to normal by 1 March is dependent on our Covid-19 activity, as we will still have a significant footprint of Covid-19 inpatients and will need to recover the activity that has been rescheduled.”

Queensland Health chief operating officer Shaun Drummond could not confirm if surgery would restart next month. Picture: Tara Croser.

Of the 405 postponed operations, 79 have since been operated on while 76 have been rescheduled.

It’s understood 405 is not considered an unreasonable number when varying patient factors are weighed in.

During 2021 an average of 30 category 1 elective operations were rescheduled each month.

There are multiple reasons surgery might be postponed, including a patient’s unavailability for a proposed date or the patient becoming unready for care.

Some category 1 surgery has been undertaken in private hospitals.

“It’s important to note surgeries are not cancelled; they are rescheduled,” a Queensland Health spokesman said.

AMAQ president Chris Perry said while he was concerned by the amount of category 1 elective surgery affected, he was confident it would be undertaken at the first possible opportunity.

Originally published as Vital surgery delayed as staff shortages continue to impact Qld hospitals