Patients waiting four years for operations meant to be completed within 12 months

Some Victorians have waited more than four years for operations meant to be completed within 12 months, even as the state’s elective surgery system starts to show some signs of pandemic recovery.

The number of people waiting for planned operations fell 11 per cent in a year to fewer than 79,000 people, new quarterly health data released on Tuesday shows.

Some Victorians have waited more than four years for operations meant to be completed within 12 months.Credit: iStock

More than 46,000 surgeries were completed in the three months to March, a small improvement from the preceding quarter, though a significant jump from the year before, when fewer than 28,000 operations took place.

The Victorian Healthcare Association called it a “great result given we still have a severe health workforce shortage in Victoria”.

However, the Australian Medical Association’s Victorian vice-president Dr Jill Tomlinson said it was still of significant concern that more than 25 per cent of elective surgery patients were not being treated within the clinically recommended time.

“It would be affecting thousands of Victorians.”

Tomlinson, a plastic, reconstructive and hand surgeon, said while some new surgical hubs were now seeing patients, not all hospital operating theatres were open due to the ongoing staff shortages.

Those overdue for category two surgeries, which can include procedures such as heart valve replacements, and should occur within 90 days, are on average 223 days overdue for their operations.

Patients whose category three surgeries are now overdue, which can include hysterectomies and hip and knee replacements, are now almost 316 days overdue on average, meaning they have been waiting on average about 680 days for their surgery.

The situation is even more dire in some of Melbourne’s major hospitals. The Royal Melbourne Hospital has an average overdue wait time for category-three surgeries of almost 458 days. At Dandenong Hospital, it is 489 days.

The Women’s at Sandringham, despite only operating on a couple of dozen patients in this category, had an average overdue wait time of 1154 days, which means that patients were waiting for surgery for more than four years.

Victorian chair of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Dr Patrick Lo, said the state’s elective surgery waitlists were slowly heading in the right direction and encouraged people who had been waiting a very long time to check in with their surgeon.

Meanwhile, the new data also showed that Ambulance Victoria is still falling well short of its benchmark to get to 85 per cent of code-one cases within 15 minutes, reaching only 65.2 per cent of cases in time.

Still, the result was 5 per cent better than the preceding quarter, when only 60.2 per cent of code-one patients were reached on time.

On Tuesday, Premier Daniel Andrews linked the flagging response rate to Australia’s GP access crisis.

“It’s not because of [Ambulance Victoria] resources or recruitment, it’s about the fact that there’s more pressure in the health system,” Andrews said.

“Emergency departments have more patients in them than they should have because quite frankly you just can’t find a bulk-billing doctor.”

Ambulance Victoria’s acting executive director of clinical operations, Michael Georgiou, said ambulance performance improved thanks to reduced demand and fewer staff furloughed due to COVID-19.

The latest data showed it took more than the benchmark of 15 minutes for paramedics to treat one in three high-priority, code-one incidents between January and March.Credit: Wayne Taylor

“We thank the community for helping us relieve pressure on our paramedics, first responders and the health system by saving triple zero (000) for emergencies.”

Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said Labor had gone to the last election promising to fix the problems plaguing the ambulance system.

“Yet six months later, response targets are still not being met, and it’s clear nothing has changed,” she said. “It’s Victorians who suffer.”

Median emergency department waiting times are back to pre-pandemic levels, according to the government, at 18 minutes. That’s down from 20 minutes in the previous quarter.

However, the number of patients who were stuck in the ED waiting for a bed for more than 24 hours is still high, at almost 2500 patients for the quarter, a sign hospitals remain very congested.

The new data comes as the state government prepares to slash spending in this month’s budget while following through on its election commitments. Victoria’s net debt is tipped to peak at $165 billion by 2025-26.

Labor made health a key part of last year’s re-election pitch. Major promises included hospital upgrades and free university degrees for nurses and midwives.

Andrews has long cited the launch – and subsequent expansion of – the state’s virtual emergency department, as well as GP-led urgent care clinics, as examples of how his government has tried to ease demand on hospitals and paramedics since the start of the pandemic.

But doctors have criticised the number of clinics available in the regions and say Australia’s hospital crisis won’t be solved until there is a national overhaul addressing both the bulk-billing system and the availability of GPs.

The state budget will be handed down on May 23.

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