Victorian public hospitals falling down in key area
Many Victorian hospitals are missing key targets and struggling to attend to people in need of emergency or urgent care within required time frames.
Victoria
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Emergency departments across Victoria are failing to treat thousands of patients within the required time frames, a damning report has found.
Arrivals to emergency departments are triaged into one of five categories: resuscitation, emergency, urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent.
Data collected by the Australian Medical Association has revealed all Victorian public hospitals were meeting targets for patients requiring resuscitation, however, many were struggling to attend to people in need of emergency or urgent care.
According to the data from 2021-22, a third of Victorian public hospitals are failing to treat more than 50 per cent of their category two patients, who could be suffering from a life-threatening condition such as a stroke, within the required 10 minutes.
Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne’s southeast is the equal worst hospital in the nation when it comes to treating category two patients, with only 20 per cent receiving care within the clinically recommended time.
Casey and Dandenong hospitals – both also in Melbourne’s southeast – follow as the second and third worst in the state, with only 23 per cent and 35 per cent of category two patients attended to within 10 minutes.
The “Australian Public Hospitals in Logjam” report was released on Tuesday ahead of Friday’s national cabinet meeting in a bid to renew the push for 50-50 federal and state funding of hospitals.
AMA president Professor Steve Robson said hospitals across the country were not meeting targets.
“It’s a significant worsening of the situation since last year’s report and it tells us that we are in a system that is under enormous strain at the moment,” he said.
In Melbourne, 42 per cent of category two patients were treated within 10 minutes at St Vincent’s Hospital, 53 per cent at Royal Melbourne Hospital, 58 per cent at The Alfred and 68 per cent at Royal Children’s Hospital.
Ballarat Base Hospital performed the worst in regional Victoria, with 32 per cent of category two patients attended to within the clinically recommended time.
The report, which also examined elective surgery performance, found that while all “urgent” patients across Victoria were seen within the recommended 30 days, “semi urgent” patients were often having to wait longer than the recommended 90 days.
The Royal Women’s Hospital was the worst in the state for this category, with only 23 per cent of semi-urgent patients treated within three months.
Semi-urgent elective surgeries can include heart valve replacement, nerve decompression and non-healing fractures.
A Victorian government spokesman said it was “rebuilding our health system to be better than it was before” through its $12bn pandemic repair plan.
“We know making the health system better requires new ways of doing things and that’s why we’ve taken over two private hospitals and converted them into public surgical centres, massively expanded the Victorian Virtual ED and Better at Home to care for more Victorians at home pre and post surgery, and built and upgraded operating theatres across Victoria,” he said.
Wheatbelt ire on proposed mines
More than half of Victoria is covered by mining exploration licenses, while the state’s wheatbelt farming families are fighting to stop projects going ahead.
Sneaky way junk food is being pitched to Vic kids
Cancer experts have raised the alarm after uncovering a “concerning” pattern in junk food adverts being located near dozens of Victorian schools and kids’ transport routes.