Patient data used to promote Queensland government funding

The Queensland government is using data from public surgery waitlists to spruik its funding commitments directly to patients.

Queensland Health and Ambulance Services Minister Tim Nicholls. Picture: Shae Beplate.

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The Queensland government is using data from public surgery waitlists to spruik its funding commitments directly to ­patients.

Patients who opt in to the long-running elective surgery public hospital program Surgery Connect are receiving text messages after booking their treatment with a link to a letter from Health Minister Tim Nicholls flagging the government’s ­additional $100m investment into the service.

The program allows patients waiting in the public system for a range of surgeries, including knee replacements, adenoid removals and cataract surgeries, to be connected to doctors in public hospitals free of charge. The Crisafulli government announced the funding boost in February.

“I am pleased that you now have a planned date for your surgical procedure as a result of this additional investment,” the letter to patients reads.

A spokeswoman for Mr Nicholls stood by the decision to use patient data to target those booked in for surgery, telling The Australian they should be made aware of it as part of their treatment as 10,000 people could be seen sooner.

“We have since kept Surgery Connect patients informed of this important change through standard notifications they receive as part of opting-in to the program,” she said.

The text focuses on funding boosts for elective surgery. Picture: Claudia Baxter / The Queensland Times

But Sydney University professor of health, law and ethics Cameron Stewart cautioned about the “piggybacking” of political posturing on health messaging. “Whilst it might be legal, it’s probably questionably unethical because of the dual use that we’ve got a political message here,” Professor Stewart said.

“All systems are based primarily on trust, and the trust value in Australian public health is very, very high. If you turn these systems into methods of party politics, it breaks down.

“Things are very polarising at the moment, and that’s the risk. We don’t want people to think of their hospitals, whether they be public or private, as being connected to politics.”

Queensland Health would not confirm whether the Health Minister ordered the letters be distributed or how many texts had been sent to patients.

Almost 65,500 Queenslanders were on public surgery waitlists through the March quarter, up 9.1 per cent on the year prior. The Surgery Connect program serviced 6607 patients, up 84.4 per cent year-on-year, while the number of people ready for their surgery longer than clinically necessary was also up 28 per cent over the same ­period (6224 patients).