Victoria’s worst hospital waiting lists revealed by AMA

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

Exclusive: Covid’s devastating toll on public hospitals means tens of 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 Victorian hospitals carried out 12.2 per cent fewer elective surgeries than in 2019-2020 overall.

This has seen waiting times for less urgent surgery like hip and knee replacements balloon and by June, some patients had been waiting more than 566 days for surgery.

Victorian Agency for Health Information data shows in June there were 66,706 people waiting for surgery in the state. That was 10,900 more people than in June 2020.

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 AMA 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 like hip or knee replacements, cataract surgery, grommets and tonsillectomies 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 wants more hospital beds Picture: Supplied

AMA president Dr Omar Khorshid said governments need 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.

Of the state’s major hospitals, Monash Medical Centre Clayton had the longest wait times for non urgent surgery like hip and knee replacements with half the patients waiting more than 190 days for their treatment.

The Royal Melbourne was the next worse with wait times of more than 153 days for half its patients and St Vincent’s Melbourne had half its patients waiting more than 108 days for surgery.

Even before the latest Covid outbreak reached its full height ambulance arrivals and emergency department attendances in the state had surged 29 per cent in the 12 months to June.

Between April to June more than 450,000 patients attended ED, which is 101,000 more than at the same period last year.

Almost half waited longer than four hours for treatment and one in three ambulances were unable to offload their patients within the recommended 40 minutes.

Unlike most states Victoria’s hospital system has not had a reprieve since Covid struck in March last year.

Australian Medical Association emergency medicine representative Dr Sarah Whitelaw says the health workforce has been “under enormous stress”.

“We’ve got 4000 health workers in Victoria who had Covid, some of those are still recovering. We have got a workforce that has been under enormous stress for the last two years,” Australian Medical Association emergency medicine representative Dr Sarah Whitelaw said.

Public hospitals are run at between 95 and 105 per cent capacity but in terms of being able to deal with surges in presentations and deliver compassionate, unhurried care you need to run at about 80 per cent full, she said.

The Australian Medical Association says the cause of the emergency backlog is there are 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.

Victoria AMA president Dr Roderick McRae said the state’s public hospital system has been stretched due to Covid-19, mental health presentations, an exhausted healthcare workforce, patients putting off their regular medical care, the healthcare needs of an older population with more complex disease and pressures exacerbated by a continued long term downward trend in private health insurance participation.

Sol Skurnik has been waiting for a new knee in the private system. Picture: Jason Edwards

‘I JUST WANT MY QUALITY OF LIFE BACK’

The first thing Sol Skurnik does when he wakes each morning is pops the first of many painkillers he will need to get through the day.

“My first four steps out of bed, if you filmed me, you’d say this guy is 125. It’s horrible,” Mr Skurnik said.

“The physical side is one thing – I limp around my job – but the mental anguish that goes with being in pain everyday, you can’t understand it unless you’ve been through it.”

The 59-year-old is waiting for a knee replacement in the private system. His surgery, originally scheduled for next week, has been cancelled indefinitely because of Covid restrictions.

Mr Skurnik, who runs a stone import manufacturing company, said given he would need up to six months off work after surgery, the uncertainty about his operation date was stopping him taking new jobs on.

He has joined Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier to call on the State Government to reveal when it will allow elective surgery to get back to business.

“The government has been using Covid as an excuse to cover up inadequacies in an already broken health system,” he said.

“My hospital only does orthopaedic cases. They don’t have the ICU beds you need for Covid patients. And yet my private hospital is being paid taxpayer money to keep beds empty.

“I’ve paid for private health insurance my whole life. When you actually need to use it, you can’t.

“I want to go for a walk with my wife without limping and being in pain. I just want my quality of life back.”

- with Brigid O’Connell

Originally published as Victoria’s worst hospital waiting lists revealed by AMA