Public hospitals set records in 2007

Queensland public hospitals set records in 2007 for the most number of people admitted to hospital and the most number of patients treated in emergency departments in a year.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson today released the latest Public Hospitals Performance Report which covered the last quarter of 2007.

“Our public hospitals are performing more surgery, treating more patients and providing more outpatient appointments than ever before,” Mr Robertson said.

“We’re performing record levels of activity because we have record numbers of doctors and nurses working for Queensland Health and we have undertaken widespread, patient-focussed reform and renewal.

“Despite our achievements of last year, we still have a lot of work ahead of us to build a first-class health system for Queenslanders.”

Mr Robertson said during December quarter last year, 214,203 people were admitted to public hospitals, a 6.3% increase on the same period the previous year (201,556).

“In total, we saw a record 842,725 admitted for hospital treatment in 2007 – that’s a 6.1% increase on 2006 (794,397) and a 9.2% increase on 2005 (771,959),” he said.

“We’re now averaging over 70,000 hospital admissions every month.

“August 2007 set a Queensland Health record for the most hospital admissions (75,348) in a month.”

Mr Robertson said emergency treatment continued to be a key driver of total hospital admissions.

“Public hospitals will always put emergency cases first and the number of people admitted to hospital from the emergency department is increasing rapidly,” he said.

“During the first five months of 2007-08, the number of emergency admissions (153,407) increased by 8% on the same period in 2006-07 (142,527).

“Emergency departments also saw numbers continue to soar to record levels in 2007.

“December quarter recorded 242,914 attendances at our major EDs (including new EDs at Robina and Prince Charles Hospital).

“Over 2007, a total of 929,093 people were treated in our major EDs – an increase of 8.7% on 2006 (854,550) and 13.5% on 2004 (818,199).

“A total of 369,650 patients were treated as accident and emergencies around the state during the December quarter, making 1.44 million for the whole year.

Mr Robertson said despite the peak demand in emergency cases, elective surgery had also increased.

“During December quarter, 28,579 Queenslanders on the waiting list received their surgery rounding out a 2007 total of 113,406 elective procedures, which is more than the previous two years,” he said.

“However, reducing the number of people waiting longer than recommended for elective surgery continues to be a challenge for our public hospitals.

“As at 1 January, 2008, 394 or 13.9% of category 1 (urgent) patients were waiting longer than recommended.

“Category 2 (semi-urgent) had 3,248 or 22.5% of ‘long waits’ and category 3 (non-urgent) had 5,445 or 29.9% of ‘long waits’.

“However overall, only 1.1% of the total number of patients on the waiting list (35,476) are category 1 ‘long waits’.”

Mr Robertson said the State Government had recently undertaken a number of initiatives to improve waiting list performance.

“Last November we announced an extra $50 million to help hospitals meet record demand and undertake more surgery and last month Queensland was allocated $27.8 million in Commonwealth funding to perform an additional 4,000 elective procedures,” he said.

“In addition, we have committed $8.5 million in one-off ‘Surgery Connect’ funding to use the private sector to treat around 1,300 additional public patients.

“So far, as shown in the report, 64 Queenslanders have already received their surgery in a private hospital through this initiative with a further 852 people recently referred for an appointment.”

The Public Hospitals Performance Report December quarter 2007 is available on www.health.qld.gov.au.

MEDIA: Joshua Cooney 3234 1185