Sunshine Coast continues to meet high demand for hospital services

The Sunshine Coast and Cooloola Health Service District continues to treat more patients than ever, the latest Queensland Health report card shows.

The Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report released today shows more people are attending the emergency department, more are receiving their surgery, more are receiving care and the surgical waiting lists are getting shorter.

Nambour, Gympie and Caloundra Hospitals showed a dramatic combined increase in activity with 3596 extra outpatient occasions of service provided. This is an increase of 10% from the corresponding quarter in 2007.

District emergency department doctors and nurses at Nambour, Caloundra and Gympie treated 28,330 patients in the June quarter. This represents a marked increase of 1,427 people compared with the same quarter last year.

Nambour’s busy emergency department treats an average of 94 people a day.

The report highlighted a similar picture of increased demand for service and a matching increase in service delivery for patients who needed to be admitted to hospital.

In the June quarter this year, the district’s public hospitals admitted 14,747 people compared with 13,976 for the same period last year. This is an increase of 771 admissions or over 5.5%.

The hospitals’ operating theatres were also busy, with surgeons performing 426 emergency and 1492 elective surgery procedures. This is up from the same period last year when 417 emergency procedures and 1413 elective surgery procedures were performed.

This represents an increase of 5.6% in elective and 2.2% in emergency surgery with an overall increase of almost 5.0%.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson said the priority for the district over the next year was to continue providing increased numbers of elective surgery procedures and reduce the number of patients waiting longer than the recommended time frame.

He said the latest report card reflected the district’s commitment to ensuring better patient outcomes.

Nambour Hospital admitted more than 200 additional patients from the elective surgery waiting list when compared to the March quarter and 300 more than for the same period last year.

“Our surgeons have worked hard during the past year to improve the overall numbers of people undergoing elective surgery procedures,” Mr Robertson said.

“About 50% of Category One patients received their treatment within 8 days and 90% were treated within 57 days. This is reflected in the improvement in the long wait patients in this category down from 29.8% on April 1, 2008 to 18.2% three months later,” he said.

Mr Robertson said he expected elective surgery performance to improve as the Bligh government continued to increase health system capacity.

The district has been allocated $2.8 million for more surgery in the sixth theatre at Nambour General Hospital, specifically targeting elective surgery procedures.

“The priority for the District over the next year is to continue providing increased services

to meet the growing demand for health services in the community,” Mr Robertson said.

The Queensland Public Hospitals Performance Report June Quarter 2008 is available on Queensland Health’s website at www.health.qld.gov.au

Category Definitions (Elective Surgery)

Category 1 – Urgent

Admission within 30 days desirable for a condition that has the potential to deteriorate quickly to the point that it may become an emergency.

Category 2 – Semi-urgent

Admission within 90 days desirable for a condition causing some pain, dysfunction or disability, but which is not likely to deteriorate quickly or become an emergency.

Category 3 – Non-urgent

Admission at some time in the future acceptable for a condition causing minimal or no pain, dysfunction or disability, which is unlikely to deteriorate quickly and which does not have the potential to become an emergency.

Long-wait

Term applied to any waiting time that exceeds the recommendation for that category.

MEDIA: Minister’s Office 3234 1185